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THE SETTLEMP]NT OF OKLAHOMA 



SOLON J. BUCK. A. M. 
Assislanl III Aiiierican History in the University ot Wisconsin 



(Reprinted from Volume XV. Part II. of the Transactions of the 
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters] 



[fssited Scftembt-r, 1907) 






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THE SETTLEMENT OF OKLAHOMA. 



SOLON J. BUCK. A, M., 
Assistant in Americaii History in the University of Wisconsin. 

(With Plates IX-XIV.) 
PHYSIOGRAPHY. 

The story of the Indian has been virtiially the same from 
the settlement of Jamestown in 1607 to the present timfi. 
Slowly but gradually his territory has diminished before the 
advance of the white man, hungry for land, imtil in the year 
1889 the domain of the American Indian, which once included 
our whole country, had come to comprise merely the so-called 
Indian Territory, a district slightly smaller than the state of 
Kansas and immediately south of it, together with a number of 
smaller reservations scattered through the western states. It 
is this Indian Territory which will probably constitute the fu- 
tiu-e state of Oklahoma, and the western half of which, to- 
gether with the former Public Land Strip or ":Nro Man's 
\ Land" north of the Texan panhandle, constitutes the present 
territory of Oklahoma. 

The territory of Oklahoma lies between the parallels of thirty- 
four and thirty-seven degrees north latitude, and between nine- 
ty-six and one hundred degrees Avest longitude, excepting 
Beaver county, which, thirty-five miles wide and one hundred 
and sixty miles long, stretches to the one hundred and third 
parallel west longitude. In latitude it corresponds with 
Tennessee and in longitude with central Kansas and Texas. 

(325) 



326 Wiscmsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 

Its area is about thirty-nine tliousand square miles, or twenty- ' 
five million acres, corresponding roughly to that of the state 
of Ohio. The land, like that in most of the prairie states, ^ 
slopes gradually upward from an altitude of seven hundred 
and fifty feet in the east, to one of four thousand in the west, 
the lowest parts being along the Cimarron in Pawnee county, 
and the highest in the extreme west of Beaver county/ 

A range of hills extending in a wide cun^e from the east cen- 
tral to the southwestern border and cnlminating in the Wichita 
mountains, whose highest peak has an altitude of twenty-thres 
hundred feet, breaks up the monotony of the prairie. The ter- 
ritory is crossed from northwest to southeast by three large 
rivers, the Arkansas, Canadian and Red, and their branches, 
the Cimarron, Xorth Canadian and Washita.' The valleys of 
these rivers are generally w^ll wooded, and in the eastern pare 
of the territory there are considerable areas covered with tim- 
ber, chiefly the different varieties of oak and mesquite.^ 

All of Braver county and the neighboring district are west 
of the line of sufficient rainfall and consequently, without irri- 
gation, suited to stock raising only. The area of sufficient 
rainfall extends farther wTst in Oklahoma than in the states to 
the north, and the farmer has pushed his way well into the wes- 
tern tier of counties, aiid in the river valleys many successful 
farms are found well beyond the danger line. The soil of cen- 
tral and northeastern Oklalioma has proven its excellence by the 
abundant ci-ops of the last ten years. It is well described by 
Governor C. M. Bames in his report for 1900. He says: 
"The surface is mostly of a rich, red clay or sandstone decom- 
position mixed, in the valleys, with black alluvial deposits, 
and is highly productive, as sho^\ni by the rich results to the 
husbandman during the past thi^ years. The soil is of suffi- 
cient depth and character to render it almost inexhaustible, and 
it will stand many successive crops before needing fertiliza- 
tion."-^ In this region the crops of the Xorth and South meet. 



1 Interior Department, Miscellaneous Reports, 1901, pt. 2, p. 414. 

2 Ibid., 1900, pt. 2, p 632. 

3 Ibid., 1898, p. 681. 

4 Ibid., 1900, pt. 2, p. 632. 

Gift 
American HiBtorical RovJsfT 

im^ 2 6 ■f'j23 



% Buck — The Settlement of Oklahoma. 327 

Side by side can be seen the wheat or com fields of Kansas 
and the cotton fields of Texas and the lower South. A greas 
diversity of crops exists, each -farmer planting the staple of 
the locality from which he came.^ This section is especially 
suited to fruit raising, peaches and grapes being very abundant. 
Melons are a staple crop in some of the eastern counties, and 
hundreds of carloads are shipped east every year.^ 

The southern part of Oklahoma comprises Greer county, 
long disputed with Texas, and what was formerly the Kiowa, 
Comanche and Apache Indian reservation. The former is ex- 
ceptionally productive, considering its western location. In the 
Kiowa, Comanche and Apache tracts there are fertile lands, 
along the Washita and other valleys, with undulating plains 
stretching away to the Eed river on the south. JVIuch of the 
land in this area is suitable only for grazing, and thousands of 
acres in the mountains are absolutely worthless except for min- 
erals. The Washita mountains in the northeastern part of the 
reservation consist of gigantic piles of rock pushed up through 
the prairie and covering an area of twelve by thirty miles. 
They are interspersed with fertile valley's and mountain parks. 
Hundred of large mountain springs give rise to streams which 
flow in every direction to join the large rivers. The moun- 
tains also give promise of considerable wealth in minerals, oil 
and natural gas.^ 

Indian Territory Before the Opening. 

The idea of removing the troublesome Indians of the south- 
em states to the great unsettled plains west of the Mississippi 
appeared immediately after the acquisition of Louisiana in 
1803. In die very next year CongTess passed an act authoriz- 
ing the President to make such removals, the Indians to ex- 
change their lands east of the Mississippi for other lands to be 
granted them in the West. In 1809 a delegation from the 
Cherokee Indians in Georgia, the Carolinas, Alabama and 

^ 1 Int. Dept, Misc. Repts., 1900, pt. 2, p. 633. 

2 Ibid., 1902, pt. 2, pp. 438, 440. 

3 Ibid., 1900, pt. 2, pp. 684-686. 



328 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 

Tennessee visited Washington and in an interview with Jeffer- 
son represented to him that a part of their tribe was anxious to 
move to lands west of the Mississippi in order to continue their 
hunting life. The President gave them permission to send a 
party to explore the ten'itory and afterwards to move to> the 
lands of their choice, and by 1817 one-third of the Cherokees 
had crossed the river/ By two treaties in 1817 and 1819 (7 
Stats., 156, 195) the United States conveyed to the Cherokee^ 
a large tract of land between the Arkansas and White rivers, 
mostly in the present state of Arkansas.^ 

In order to make room for the advancing settlement, a new 
treaty was entered into with the Cherokees in 1829 (9 Stats., 
311), by which they gave up all claim to the lands in Arkan- 
sas granted to them in 1817 and 1819, and the United States 
agreed to guarantee to them forever seven million acres and a 
perpetual outlet west with free and unmolested use of all that 
country west of the western boundary of the seven million acres 
as far as the United States extended.^ By treaties of 1833 and 
1835 (7 Stats., 414, 478), this Cherokee land was defined so as 
to include Tract 1, Plate IX, together with other land in 
what is now the state of Kansas', and in 1838 la single patent 'was 
issued to the Cherokees conveying all of this land.* Meanwhile 
the Indian Territory, as such, had been created by an act of 
Congress of 1834, setting it apart for the permanent occupa- 
tion of all the five tribes from the southern states.^ The dis- 
covery of gold in Georgia and Alabama had led to trouble with 
the Indians remaining there and tO' a demand for their re- 
moval, so that the Cherokees east of the Mississippi were by 
the" treaty of 1835, mentioned above, forced to cede all their in- 
herited lands and to join their tribesmen in Indian Territory.® 

The first steps toward the removal of the Creek Indians 
were taken in 1824, in which year a treaty was made (7 Stats., 



1 Congressional Record, vol. 18, p. 334. 

2 Senate Executive Doc, 78, 51 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 3. 

3 Ibid. 

4 Ibid., p. 4. 

6 United States Census, 1900, Indians, p. 529. 
6 Congressional Record, vol. 18, p. 334. 



Buck— The Settlement of OJdaJwma. 329 

278) giving them, permission to examine the country. The 
removal took plac<> in the years 1832-33, and in 1833 a ti-eaty 
(7 Stats., 417) conveyed to them the tract numbered 2 on 
Plate IX. By this treaty the Seminoles, with whom a treaty 
of removal had been made in 1832 (7 Stats., 369), were ito be in- 
eorporated into the Creek nation and to enjoy a part of their 
lands. A patent was issued to the Creeks for this land in 
1851.1 

The first session of land west of the Mississippi to the Choc- 
taws was made bj^ a treaty of 1820 (7 Stats., 210), by which 
they were given the tract of lanl between the Arkansas rivei 
with its branch, the Canadian, and the E-ed river. By the 
treaties of 1825 and 1830 (7 Stats., 333), this tract was re- 
stricted on the east to the western Arkansas boundary, making 
it coincide with Tract 3, Plate IX. The patent was not issued 
to the Choctaws for this land, however, mitil 1842, at which time 
the Chiokasaws, who gave up their lands east of the Mississippi 
in 1832 (7 Stats., 381), had been settled there also.^ Thus 
the whole of Indian Territory, excepting the small Qnapaw 
agency (Tract 4, Plate IX), was covered by these three let- 
ters patent of 1838, 1842 and 1851 to the Cherokees, Ch.octaws 
and Creeks respectively. 

In 1837 an agreement was entered into between the Choe- 
taw and Chickasaw Indians by which the Choctaws formed the 
western pail: of their domain into the Chickasaw district as a 
permanent home for that tribe, but never to be alienated ^dth- 
out the consent of both tribes. By a second convention in 
1854 this district was defined as is indicated by Tracts 4 and 
5, Plate X. The next year the United States made a treaty 
(11 Stats., 611) with the two tribes, by which the Chickasaw 
district was confined to Tract 4, Plate X, and the territory 
west of this — Tract 5 — ^Avas leased to the United States for a 
permanent home for the Wichitas and such other Indian tribes, 
with certain exceptions, as the United States might see fit to 
locate there.^ 



1 Sen. Ex. Doc, 78, 51 Cong., 1 Sess., pp. 15-16. 

2 Ibid., pp. 24-25. 

3 Ibid., pp. 25-27. 



330 Wisconmn Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 

The first diyision of the Creek territory was made in the 
year 1855. As btfore mentioned, the Seminoles had been in- 
corporated into the Creek nation by the treaty of 1833, but the 
two tribes did not get along well together, and the dissensions 
finally became so violent that the United States government 
intervened and made the treaty of 1856 (11 Stats., 699), by 
which the Creeks ceded to the Seminoles the land between the 
Canadian river and its North Fork, designated as Tract 6, on 
Plate X.i 

Many of ^the Indians in the territory twere slavehold'ers, 
and for this reason and others, v/hen the Civil war broke out 
in 1860, all of the tribes made treaties with the southern con- 
federacy and thus severed their relations with the United 
States. Some of the tribes repudiated this action early in the 
war, while others remained allies of the confederates through- 
out. At the close of the war, it was necessary to make some 
new arrangement with these Indians, and so a series of four 
treaties was made in the year 1866 with the several tribes. 
By these treaties the Choctaws and Chickasaws converted the 
lease of Tract 5, Plate X, into an absolute conveyance, the 
Seminoles ceded their entire domain. Tract 6, and the Creeks 
the entire western half of their domain. Tract Y, to the United 
States "in compliance with a desire of the United States to 
locate other Indians and freedmen thereon."^ 

The Cherokees gave up what land they possessed in Kansas 
and also agreed with the United States that all of their land 
west of ninety-six degrees west longitude, which is Tract 8, 
Plate X, should be held in reserve as it were, the United 
States to have power to settle thereon, under certain conditions, 
friendly Indians to whom the Cherokees would convey the land 
in fee simple and at a price to be agreed upon, but the title and 
jurisdiction of the Cherokees in this land was to remain unim- 
paired until so conveyed.^ Plate XI represents the situation 

1 Sen. Ex. Doc, 78, 51 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 16. 

2 Congressional Record, vol. 18, pp. 335-36; Sen. Ex. Doc, 50, 48 Cong., 
2 Sess., p. 18. 

s Sen. Ex. Doc, 109, 48 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 2. 



Buck — The Settlement of Oklahoma. 331 

in Indian Territory after the treaties of 18G6. Tract 1 is what 
remained of the original three cessions shown on Plate IX : 
Tract 2 represents the territory in the possession of the United 
States for the pnq>ose of settling Indians and freedmen there- 
on ; and Tract 3 is the Cherokee Outlet, the disposal of which 
was in the control of the United States. 

To take up the disposal of the two latter areas by the United 
States: Tract 1, Plate XII, was sold to the Seminoles by the 
same treaty of 18 G 6 by which they gave up their entire do- 
main. The rest of their present territory was purchased from 
the Creeks in ISSS.^ By the treaty of 1867 (15 Stats., 490), 
Tract 2, Plate XII, was given to the Sacs and Foxes,- and by 
another treaty in the same year (15 Stats., 581), Tract 3 was 
ceded to the Kiowas, Comanches and Apaches.^ The Chey- 
ennes and Arapahoes were located on Tracts 4 and 8 by execii- 
tive order in 1869.^ The first disposition of Cherokee land 
was made by an order of the Secretary of the Interior in 1871 
locating the Osages on Tracts 5 and 6. An act of Congress of 
the next year (17 Stats., 228) gave the Osages Tract 5 
and the Kansas Indians Tract 6." The Pottawatomies and 
Absentee ShaT\Tiees were located on Tract 7 by act of Congress 
in 1872 (17 Stats., 159),' and in the same year the Wichitas 
were located on Tract 8, an agreement to that effect being 
made with the Cheyennes and Arapahoes, but this was never 
ratified by Congress.^ In 1876 the Pawnee Indians were lo- 
cated by act of Congress (19 Stats., 28) on Tract 9, partly 
within the Cherokee Outlet and partly in the Creek cession." 
Then Tracts 10 and 11 were given to the Xez Perces and Pon- 
cas respectively by acts of Cbngress in 1878 (20 Stats., 74, 76) 
and Tract 12 to the Otoes and Mi&sourias in 1881 (21 Stats., 

1 Sen. Ex. Doc, 50, 48 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 18. 

2 Ibid. 

3 Ibid., 109, 48 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 6. 

4 Ibid., and Sen. Ex. Doc., 50, 48 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 19. 

5 Ibid., 109, 48 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 3. 

6 Ibid., 50, 48 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 18. 

7 Ibid., 78, 51 Cong., 1 Sess., p. 29. 

8 Ibid., 50, 48 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 18; Sec. Int. Kept.. 1883, vol. 2, p. 42. 



332 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, ArtSj and Letters. 

318).^ The last disposals were made in August 1883, when 
the lowas and. Kickapoos were located by executive order on 
Tracts 13 and 14 respectively.^ 

Otf tlie remaining territory, the titlei of the United States to 
Tract 15 was disputed by Texas owing to a disagreement as to 
what constituted tte Red river of the treaties of 1819 with 
Spain and 1828 with Mexico. The portion of the Cherokee 
Outlet which was still unassigned, and consequently still under 
the jurisdiction of the Cherokees, is represented by Tracts 17 
and 18, including about six million acres. Tract 15, including 
1,887,800.47 acres^ in the very center of Indian Territory, 
and embracing parts of both the Greek and Seminole cessions,, 
was still unassigned. This was the region known to the In- 
dians and afterwards to the "boomers" and the world at large 
as Oklahoma, "the beautiful land." 

Such was the status of the land in the western part of Indian 
Territory, later the territory of Oklahoma, in the decade from 
1879 to 1889, tlie period of the Oklahoma "boomers." x\nd 
now perhaps some statistics regarding the density and con- 
dition of the Indian population will be of valuer in understand- 
ing the situation. To take first tlie Indians settled on the 
Cherokee strip in Tracts 5, 6, 9, 10, 11 and 12, Plate XII; 
we find in 1884 a population all told of four thousand, three 
hundred and eight Indians possessing an extremely fertile tract 
of two million, one hundred and twenty-two thousand acres, or 
nearly five hundred acres for every man, woman and child.* 
When we consider that the white fanners who' afterwards settled 
Oklahoma thought a farm of one hundred and sixty acres ample 
for a family, an average of about thirty-two acres per individ- 
ual, we can comprehend the fact that the poor down-trodden 
American Indian had become a wealthy landlord. These In- 
dians on the Cherokee strip were mostly semi-civilized and culti- 
vated the soil to some extent. The Indians on what was somef- 



1 Sec. Int. Rept., 1883, vol. 2, p. 42. 

2 Sen, Ex. Doc, 50, 48 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 18. 

3 Ibid., p. 19. 

4 Sec. Int. Rept., 1883, vol. 2, pp. 131-33. 



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Buch — The Settlement of Oklalwrna. 333 

times considered part of the original Oklahoma, Tracts 2, 7, 13 
and 14, numbered about two thousand, one hundred and sixty 
souls, and their territory included roughly about one million, six 
hundred and fifty thousand acres of the best land in the tem- 
tory, an average of about seven hundred and seventy acres for 
each individual.^ Some of these Indians were partly civilized 
and some were still in the blanket stage. Tracts 3, 4 and 8 
contain in round numbers about eight million acres and wer? 
held by ten thousand, three hundred blanket Indians, making 
an average of seven hundred and fifty acres apiece," but these 
Indians were not so well off comparatively as the othei'S, be- 
cause their land was located farther west and much of it was of 
little value. 

There remained about six million acres of the Cherokee strip, 
one million, eight hundred and eighty-eight thousand acres in 
Oklahoma proper, and Greer county with a million and a half 
acres,^ in which there were no Indians. In the latter there was 
already some white settlement under the jurisdiction of Texas. 
Outside of the Indian Territory, but afterwards a part of Okla- 
homa, was the Public Land Strip, or "]^o Man's Land," con- 
sisting of three million, six hundred and eight;v-one thousand 
acres.* This strip of land, which had accrued to the LTnited 
States from Texas, had never been organized or placed imder 
the jurisdiction of any state or territory. It w^as, however, 
a part of the public domain, and as such was open to settlement 
under the homestead laws. There were already quite a num- 
ber of settlers in this land along the edges of the streams where 
settlement was possible, and as they were entirely without law 
they had organized a provisional government, and on March 4, 
1886, resolved themselves into a territory to be called Cimarron 
and elected a certain Dr. Chase as delegate to Congress to de- 
mand recognition. Nothing came of this organization, howeN'-er, 



1 Sec. Int. Rept, 1883. vol. 2, p. 142. 

2 Ibid., pp. 118, 128; Congressional Record^ vol. 17, Appendix, pp. 175- 
76. 

8 Int. Dept, Misc. Repts., 1902, pt. 2, p. 493. 
4 Ibid., p. 492. 



334 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 

but it sei'ved as a means of protecting property rights among 
the settlers.^ 

Here, then, are twenty-four million, seven hundred and seven- 
ty-four thousand, four hundred acres in all, occupied by less 
than seventeen thousand Indians, who can at best make use of 
but a very small part of it. It could not be expected that all 
the rest of the land would lie idle when surrounded by settled 
states in which land was at a premium. Cionsequently the 
natural thing happened, and this vacant land was. taken possess- 
ion of by stock raisers with their vast herds of cattle. At first 
they simply drove on their herds and asked no question as to 
the ownership of the land. But the Indians soon saw that here 
was an opportunity to turn their vast unused acres to account, 
and they began to make leases to the cattlemen, which, although 
at absurdly low rates per acre, netted them large sums of money 
because of the great extent of the area leased. 

An investigation of these leases made in 1885^ shows that the 
Cherokees had leased the six million acres in the Outlet to the 
Cherokee Strip Live Stock Association for one hundred thous- 
and dollars per annum, or less than two cents an acre. The 
Cheyennes and Arapahoes had leased the whole western part 
of their domain, about three million, eight hundred thousand 
acres, in eight different leases at two cents per acre. The Os- 
ages had leased three hundred and eighty thousand acres in six 
leases at six cents per acre, and the Kansas Indians, fifty-two 
thousand acres at four cents and three hundred acres at fiity 
cents, the latter being under cultivation. Each of the other small 
tribes, the Nez Perces, Poncas, Pawnees, Otoes and Missourias, 
Sao9 and Foxes and the lowas, had leased about h.alf of its reser- 
vation at an average rate of three cents per acre. The Okla- 
homa district, being thus surrounded on nearly all sides by 
leased grazing lands, was of course overrun with cattle for 
which no payment was made to anyone.^ Some of these Indian^', 
as the Cherokees, who held their land in fee simple, seem to 



1 Int. Rept, Misc. Repts., 1900, pt. 2, p. 671. 

2 Sen. Ex. Doc, 17, 48 Cong., 2 Sess., pp. 12-15. 

3 Ibid., pp. 90, 91. 




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Buch — The Seltlement of Ol-Jahoma. 335 

have had the right to make these leases, but those who had pos- 
session merely under executive order had no authority to do so. 
It was, however, understood that the Department of the Inte- 
rior would not interfere. In spite of all the landed possessions 
of these Indians in the territory and of the money flowing into 
their coft'ei's from those cattle leases, they were still paupers of 
the government, unable to take cave of themselves, and it was 
costing the United States a quarter of a million dollars every 
year to support them/ 

Another aspect of this region, surrounded as it was with 
settled states, was the fact that it furnished an unusually safe 
harbor for criminals and outlaws from all the suiTounding 
region. A fugitive from justice had but to make his way into 
Indian Territory and be adopted into some of the tribes or join 
some of the cattle ranches, and he was practically safe from 
the arm of the law." That Indian Territory was the home 
of the law breaker is shown by the fact that the United States 
District Court for western Arkansas, which had jurisdiction 
over Indian Tei-ritory, had five hundred and fifty-two criminal 
prosecutions in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1885, a number 
double that of fifty-seven of the other sixty-eight districts in the 
United States.^ Such, then, was the situation in Indian Terri- 
tory in the eighties, and everything was indeed ripe for the 
work of the "Oklahoma boomers." 

THE AGITATION FOR THE OPENING OF OKLAHOMA. 

There are many facts which tend to show that the plan of 
settling Oklahoma Avith white men was in the beginning thn 
work of the railroad interests involved.^ In July 1866, shortly 
after the Indian treaties of cession, a bill was rushed through 
Congress gi'anting to the Atlantic and Pacific railroad each 
alternate section for forty miles on both sides of the proposed 



1 Congressional Record, vol. 17, Appendix, p. 177. 

2 Ibid., p. 5214. 

8 Ibid., Appendix, p. 178. 

4 New York, Tribune Extras, vol. 1, no. 7, p. 23; Sen. Ex. Doc, 50, 
48 Cong., 2 Sess., pp. 49, 55. 



336 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 

line of location through Indian Territory, title to be made 
good when the Indian title should be extinguished.^ Althougli 
this grant had been forfeited through failure to complete the 
road in the specified time, the company, or its successor, still 
felt it had some claim to the grant, which would be strengthened 
by opeaiing the territory to white settlement. Moreover, it was 
evident that the earning capacity of all the different roads 
through the territory woaild be vastly increased by the addi- 
tional traffic which would come with its settlement.^ 

The movement seems to have been started by two men. Col, 
E. O. Bondinot, a Cherokee Indian and a talented lawyer and 
lobbyist in Washington, holding the position of clerk of the 
House committee on private claims,^ and C. C. Carpenter, 
a man of unsavoiy reputation in connection with a similar en- 
terprise for opening the Black Hills to settlement.* In the 
Chicago Times of February 17, 1879, CW. Boudinot published 
an airticle calling attention to certain lands in Oklahoma which 
he asserted were open to settlement, and, in answer to numerous 
inquiries, he prepared a map and a letter declaring all western 
Indian Territory below the Cherokee Strip, excepting the Sac 
and Fox, Pottawatomie and Wichita reservations^ to be 
property of the United States and open to settlement under 
the homestead laws. This mapi and letter were widely circu- 
lated throughout the countiy and attracted the attention of 
many homeseekers.^ 

Early in 1879, O. O. Cai'penter, presumably in the pay of 
the railroads, issued a circular and spread notices through the 
newspapers of Kansas to the effect that Oklahoma was open 
to settlejnent, and inviting people to take possession of it.^ 
Many worthy people were attracted by these notioesi and be- 
gan to move toward Oklahoma. The attention of President 
Hayes having been called to this state of affairs, he issued a 



1 Congressional Record, vol. 17, Appendix, p. 181. 

2 Chautauquan, June 1889, p. 533. 

3 Ibid. 

4 Sen. Ex. Doc, 50, 48 Cong., 2 Sess., p. 49. 
s Ibid., p. 51. 

6 Ibid., pp. 8, 52. 



Buck — The Settlement of Oklahoma. 337 

proclamation on the twentieth of February, 1879, warning all 
persons against attempting to invade or settle on any land in 
the Indian Territory and advising them that they wonld be re- 
moved by military force if necessary/ At the same time, 
the army was given instT*nctions to enforce the proclamation and 
the proposed invasion was checked with little difficulty, the 
people readily turning back when informed of the true condi- 
tions." 

From this time on, attention centers in Captain D. L. 
Payne, the most noted of the ''Oklahoma boomers." He was 
of a frontier type, a skilful hunter, soldier and politician. 
In 1878 he was doorkeeper of the House of Representatives.^ 
Payne was probably in the pay of the railroads at the start, but 
his -fertile brain soon evolved a scheme of organization where- 
by "booming Oklahoma" became an extremely profitable occu- 
pation in itself, and no incentive was needed to keep the leaders 
at it. Payne and his associates organized what they called 
the "Oklahoma Colony." Everj- one who joined the colony 
had to pay a fee of at least one dollar, and in addition, the 
leaders organized themselves into a tO"wn-site company and 
sold claims to lots at from two to twenty-five dollars each, ac- 
cording to vrhether "booming" was dull or brisk. It is esti- 
mated that one hundred thousand dollars must have lx»en re- 
ceived in this way before tbe death of Payne.* 

In order to get around the President's proclamation of 1879 
and to delude tlie i^eople into believing that they still had the 
right to settle in Oklahoma, the leaders of the "colony" repre- 
sented that the President had changed his mind as to the state 
of these lands since the issuance of the proclamation, and had 
admitted in his last message to Congress that they were open to 
settlement.^ To correct this statement the President issued a 
second proclamation on February 12, 1880, dsclaring such 
representations Avholly without foundation, and reit-erating the 



1 Sec. Int. Rept., 1879, vol. 1, p. 294. 

2 Ibid., pp. 14, 103; Sen. Ex. Doc, 50, 48 Cong.. 2 Sess., p. 9. 

3 Chautauquan, June 1889, p. 534. 

*Ibid.; Sen. Ex. Doc, 50, 48 Cong.. 2 Sess.. p. 5. 
6 Sec Int. Rept, 1880, vol. 1. p. 96. 
5— S. & A. 



338 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, ArtSj, and Letters. 

declarations of the former j)roclamation.^ In spite of this, 
the first organized raid on Oklahoma took place in April 1880. 
A party of about tv/efntv-fire men, led by Captain Payne and 
"Oklahoma Hany" (Han-y L. Hill, a wealthy resident of 
Wichita), left Arkansas City April 13tli and advanced into 
Oklahoma over what is known as the Hog's Back trail. On 
April 22nd, they selected a to^vn-site about forty miles east of 
Fort Eeno and a mile and a half south of the N'orth Fork of 
the Canadian river.^ 

Meanwhile the military officers in charge of the Missouri 
district had been instructed to remove the intruders, and if any 
returned, to turn them over to the United States marshal a I; 
Fort Smith.^ In pursuance of this, the outfit led by Payne 
was corralled on May 12th by Lieutenant Pardee and tw^elvo 
soldiers, and Payne and thirteen of his followers were arrested. 
Tliese were held until the third of June awaiting instructions 
and then conducted outside of the territory and warned not to 
return.* ISTot at all deterred by this treatment, Payne was soon 
at work again, and on the fifteenth of July w^as again discov- 
ered in the Indian Territory and captured with twenty-two 
followers. This time th.ey were held until August 7th, when 
Payne and the other old offenders were turned over to the 
United States marshal for the western district of Arkansas, 
and the others released. The prisoners were soon released on 
bail to appear at the ISTovember term of court, and at the subse- 
quent May term a civil suit in the nature of an action for debt, 
the only action possible under the law, was brought against 
Payne in the name of tlie United States to recover the statu- 
tory penalty of one thousand dollars for invasion of Indian res- 
ervations. Judgment was of course: rendered against him, but 
nothing could be collected, as he was entirely impecunious.^ 

Elven while awaiting trial Payne had not been quiet, and in 
December 1880 had assembled about two hundred men be- 



1 Sec. Int. Kept, 1880, vol. 1, p. 323. 

2 Ibid., pp. 96-97; Chautauquan, June 1889, p. 534. 

3 Sen. Ex. Doc, 50, 48 Cong., 2 Sess., pp. 3-4. 

4 Ibid., p. 4. 

6 Sec. Int. Rept., 1881, vol. 2, p. 54. 



Bud- — The Settlement of Oklahoma. 339 

tween Caldwell and Arkansas City, and would have entered the 
territory but for the presence of the ti-oops. They encamped near 
Caldwell Deecnihor 11th, detennined to Avait until the troops 
\reYQ removed, but were forced to disperse a.l>out January^ 6th 
by the extreme cold.^ In the year 1882 Payne was twice cap- 
tured in Indian Territory, once in May with twenty-nine men, 
when the party was mei*ely conducted across the border and 
released, and again in August with seven men and two women, 
when Payne and six of the men "were taken to Fort Reno as 
prisoners ajid, in tlie latter paxt of September, turned over again 
to the civil autliorities at Fort Smith, where the previous per- 
formance was repeated." 

There is no need of g"oing into the details of the subsequent 
raids, for they are but variations of these. About twice each year 
Payne and a party of "boomers" would be arrested in the ter- 
ritory' by the military', the old offenders turned over to the mar^ 
shal at Fort Smith, and then released to repeat the farce. It 
wtas evident tliat the United States laws were entirely inadeh 
quate to deal with the situation, and the Secretaiy of the In- 
terior and Commissioner of Indian Affairs were continually 
urging upon Congress, but without success, the advisability of 
passing a more stringent law to cover the offence.^ The mili- 
tary officers also soon tired of the farce they were compelled to 
play in periodically ejecting the intruders. The commanding 
general of the Missouri district reported in 1882 that these 
raids were entailing a heavy expense upon the government 
and subjecting the troops to long and severe marches to no pur- 
pose. He suggested that Payne be shut up in the guardhouse 
and made to work for his living until some remedy for the sit- 
uation be found. Such action, of course, could not be countt'- 
nanced by the Secretary of War, and so the continuous vaude- 
ville performance went on.'* 

The most noteworthy of all raids was that which in 1884 
effected a settlement at Kock Falls and at other places a few 



1 Sen. Ex. Doc, 50, 48 Cong., 2 S^s^s., pp. 4, 10. 

2 Ibid., p. 4; Sec. Int. Rept, 1881, vol. 2, p. 54. 

3 Sec. Int. Rept., 1882, vol. 2, p. 13. 

4 Sen. Ex. Doc, 50, 48 Cong., 2 Sess., pp. 4, 11. 



340 Wisconsi7i Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 

miles south of the Kansas border in the Cherokee Strip. The 
raiding parties had been gradually growing in strength up to 
this timej and this one was made up of about six hundred men, 
women and children. On July 1, 1884, President Arthur 
issued a proclamation which was substantially the same as 
those of his predecessor, but the settlement at Rock Falls con- 
tinued to prosper and developed into a well settled town with 
its stores and its newspaper, Finally, on August 6, 1884, Col. 
Hatch appeiared at Eock Falls, after the little settlemient had 
prospered quietly for several months, and, explaining his mis- 
sion to the leaders and the people, read the President's proc- 
lamation and ordered them to withdraw. The next day the 
removals began, the improvements at Elock Falls were burned, 
Payne and others arrested and taken to Fort Smith, and the 
rest of the colonists driven across the border into Kansas, but 
Cherokee lands were not entirely cleared of intruders until 
the middle of September. '^ 

The reported presence and active assistance of a cowboy in 
the removals at Rock Falls ^ indicates one of the principal 
grievances of the "Oklahoma boomers." They knew that not 
only Oklahoma proper, but the whole western part of Indian 
Territory was in reality in possession of the cattlemen, and 
they could not understand why their right to make use of this 
land was not as good as that of the stock-raising companies nor 
why they should be ejected by the military forces while the 
cowboys and their herds were protected. In 1884 it was called 
to the attention of the Secretary of the Interior that Oklahoma 
was covered with wire cattle fences, and in June their removal 
by the military was ordered. This was carried out in Septem- 
ber, but it did not mean a removal of the cattle themseh'os.'' 

Payne died suddenly in l^ov^nber 1884 under suspicious 
circumstances, and a report was circulated to the effect that he 
had been poisoned by the cattlemen. He was succeeded by 
Capt. W. L. Couch, who had been one of his associates. Ck>uch 



1 Sec. Int. Rept., 1884, vol. 1, pp. 31-32; Chaiitauqiian, June 1889. p. 
534. 

2 Ibid., pp. 534-35. 

3 Sen. Ex. Doc. 50. 48 Cong., 2 Sess., pp. 5-6. 



Buck— The Settlement of Oklahoma. 341 

made such representations to Secretary Lamar of the Interior 
Department, concerning the injustice of excluding settlers and 
allowing cattlemen to remain, that an order was issued in 
March 1885 for the removal of the cattle in Oklahoma. The 
carrying out of this order was long delayed by the plea of the 
cattlemen that their herds had been crowded for range and 
were too poor to stand the journey, and it is probable that it 
was never stnctly enforced/ 

Two raids occurred under the leadership of Couch in 1885. 
In January he was found at Stillwater with several hundred 
armed men and a few women and children, living in small ex- 
cavations in the sand hills on the left bank of the Cimarron 
river. When Lieutenant Day with a troop of thirty men or- 
dered them to remove, he was met by two hundred men armed 
with shotguns and Winchesters. JS^ot wishing to precipitate a 
collision, the Lieutenant sent for reinforcements and arranged 
his troops so as to cut off supplies and new arrivals who were 
constantly pouring in. Finally the provisions gave out, and 
on January 27th the troops closed in and effected a removal." 

During the summer a camp of ''boomers" was formed near 
Arkansas City numbering from' six to eight hundred, with the 
avowed intention of crossing the border at the first opportunity. 
In October and ISTovember they entered, headed by Couch, and 
encamped near Council Grove on the Canadian, but were soon 
removed by the military ^\^th little difficulty.^ The Gulf, 
Colorado and Santa Fe railroad having by this time succeeded 
in getting from Congress a right of way through the territory, 
Couch now ceased ''booming" to take contracts for grading the 
new line, and although a few people entered Oklahoma every 
year from 1885 to 1889, there were no more organized raids.* 

Although a great many petitions for the oi>ening of Okla- 
homa were received by Congress at each session from the wes- 
tern states, and although several bills concerning it had been in- 



1 Cosmopolitan, vol. 7, p. 461. 

2 Sec. Int. Rept, 1885, vol. 2, pp. 58-60; Sen. Ex. Doc, 50, 48 Cong., 
2 Sess., p. 7. 

3 Sec. Int. Rept., 1885, vol. 2, pp. 58-60. 

4 Chautauguon, .June 1889, p. 535. 



342 



Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 



troduoed, Congress did not take any real notice of the situation 
imtil 1885, when a resolution was passed authorizing the 
President "to open negotiations with the Ci-eeks, Seminoles 
and Cherokees for the purpose of opening to settlement under 
the homestead laws, the unassigned land in Indian Territory." 
(23 Stats., 384.) President Cleveland did not consider this 
resolution as obligaitory, and believing that such action would 
not be advisable in the state of affairs then existing, he paid no 
attention to it.^ But the demand for opening Oklahoma was 
not to be stifled in this way. The agitation increased in the 
wesitern states, floods of petitions poured iu upon Congress, and 
one by one the states passed resolutions in favor of the opening. 

As a result of this agitation, a bill was introduced into the 
House in 1886 to provide a territorial government for Indian 
Territory and to create a coniiuission to trea.t with the Indians 
for opening the vacant land to settlement. A strong opposition 
to this bill was immediately developed which based its argu- 
ments on the idea that the interests of the Indians were not re- 
ceiving sufficient consideration, and that it would be a violation 
of their solemn treaties. The influence of the powerful cattle 
oorporatious was also exerted against the bill, and it failed of 
passage after having given occasion to a long debate.^ 

Congressman Springer, chairman of the committee on ter- 
ritories, introduced another bill in Cbngress in 1888, from which 
he had endeavored to eliminate the objectionable features of the 
previous bill. This bill j^rovided for the organization of the 
territory of Oklahoma out of Indian T'erritoiy, excepting the 
land of the five civilized tribes and including the Public Land 
Strip.. JSTo lands patented to the Indians were to be included 
nor any Indian rights disparaged. Nevertheless the opposi- 
tion maintained that to organize Oklahoma into a territoiy be- 
fore the clear title had been procured from the Indians, was 
practically to force them to sell, and in spite of the demands of 
the western people and tlie arguments aidvanced to support the 
bill, its promoters were unable to push it through.^ 



1 Congressional Record, vol. 19, p. 6744. 

2 Ibid., vol. 17, p. 4064. 

3 Ibid., vol. 19, p. 6741. 



Bud-— The Seltlement of Ol-Iahoma. 343 

It having now become evident that Congress would take no 
step toward opening Oklahoma nntil arrangements had been 
made with the Indiaiiiij the President, acting under the author- 
ization of 1885, made a treaty with the Creeks on January 19, 
1889, by which they agreed to convey to the United States a 
complete title to the land ceded by tlie treaty of 1866 in con- 
sideration of a little over two million dollars. This arrange 
ment was ratified by act of Congress March 1, 1889 (25 Stats., 
735), and was followed by a section tacked on to the Indian ap- 
propriation bill of Alaich 2nd (25 Stats., 1004), which appro- 
priated a slightly smaller sum to pay the Seminoles for the 
lands ceded to them in 1866, and provided for opening to set- 
tlement the land thus acquired by proclamation of the Presi- 
dent. All of this land was in the possession and occupancy of 
various Indian tribes, except the one million, eight hundred 
and eighty-eight thousand acres of Oklahoma proper, and so a 
proclamation was issued March 23, 1889, defining this area 
(Tract 16, Plate XII^ and declaring it open to homestead 
settlement after twelve o'clock noon, the twenty-second of April, 
1889.^ At last the dream of the "boomer" was to be realized 
and he was to be ]oennitted to make a home for himself on 
government land in the fertile Oklahoma district. 

OKLAHOMA OPENED TO SETTLEMENT. 

The law imder which Oklahoma was opened (25 Stats., 
1004) made no provision whatever for the govenmient of the 
territory. It merely provided that it should becomie a part of 
the public domain and be disposed of in accordance with the 
homestead laws to qualified persons, in areas not to exceed o'" 
hundred and sixty acres for each settler. Sections 16 and 36 
of each, township were reserved for the benefit of the public 
schools, and it was further provided that anyone who should 
enter prior to the opening should forfeit tlie right to homestead, 
any lands tliereon. The only jurisdiction of any sort over the 
disitrict was that of the courts of Texas, Kansas and Arkansas, 



1 Sec. Int. Rept, 1889, vol. 1, pp. 95-103. 



344 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, ArtSj and Letters. 

in criminal cases punishable by death or hard labor, and of the 
newly established United States court of Indian Territory with 
jurisdiction in other offences and civil cases where the amount 
involved was one hundred dollars or more. Under the act of 
Marcli 1, 1889 (25 Stats., 784), which created this court, an 
attorney and United States marshal had been appointed for it, 
and the latter had been given power tO' appoint deputies. 
Under this very defective system there was no law and no one 
with executive power but a marshal of a distant United States 
court.^ In spite of all this, the President and the Secretary of 
the Interior felt that it would be far better to open up the ter- 
ritory as it was and trust to the innate sense of justice in the 
American people, than to postpone the opening until proper 
government could be provided by the next session of C<>ngress 
and thus disappoint and entail great hardship© upon the thou- 
sands of people already gathered on the borders of the prom- 
ised land. 

The President's proclamation of March 23rd^ provided for the 
establishment of two land offices for Oklahoma, one at Guthrie 
and one at Kingfisher Stage Station, and registers and receiv- 
ers for these were immediately appointed. Inspector Pickler 
was detailed fro'm the Greneral Land OiSce and proceeded to 
make arrangements for establishing the Oklahoma offices. 
The buildings for these offices were made in sections, conveyed 
into the territory on wagons, and there put together, and on the 
stated day the land officers were in their places and the offices 
opened ready for business.^ The United States marshals ap- 
pointed a large number of deputies in anticipation of the 
crowds to come and made arrangements for preserving order 
among the settlers, and a military force was also detailed by the 
Secretary of War to keep out thei people on the border until the 
stated time and to assist in preserving order during the 
opening. 

Word had gone forth throughout the United States that 
Oklahoma was at last to be opened to the horaeseeker, and 
long before the opening day her future population began to 



1 Sec. Int. Rept., 1889, vol. 1, pp. iv-v. 

2 Ibid., pp. 95-103. 

3 Ibid., p. V. 



Back — The Settlement of Oklahoma. 345 

gather on tlie Ixu'dei's. Those on the north stopped at Arkan- 
sas Oity or Caldwell or camped along the border. Each of 
these places had its population increased many fold by this 
great influx of transients, while on the southern border a veri- 
table metropolis sprang up where before was nothing but a rail- 
road station and a water tank. This was at Purcell in the 
Chickasaw district, just across the Canadian river from Okla- 
homa.^ A week before the opening, there were about fifteen 
hundred prospective settlers at each of tlie northern cities, and 
the number grew at a rapidly increasing rate as the time drew 
near. Together with those at smaller camps and on the south- 
ern line, there were on the twenty-second of April at least 
twenty thousand people waiting for the sound of the bugle 
which should let them into the coveted territory. 

As those on the north would otherwise have been at a serious 
disadvantage compared to their southern rivals, the authori- 
ties decided to permit them to cross the Cherokee Strip 
after the eighteenth. Consequently most of the outfits moved 
down from the cities to the line on the seventeenth to get an 
early start the next day. At a signal blast from a bugle in 
the morning, the procession started across the strip. Before 
noon five hundred wagons had crossed the border of the ex- 
temporized road near Arkansas City, and more were on the 
way, and still the city was overflowing.^ Trains came rolliag 
in every hour fllled. mth prospective settlers from all parts of the 
Union, and on the morning of the t-swnty-second most of these 
gathered aroimd the depot and the five trains drawn up on ad- 
jacent tracks ready to make the iim, and speculated as to- which 
train would start first. But so great was the crowd that those 
were lucky who got a place on any of the trains. The plat- 
forms were overflowing, some clambered up on top of the 
coaches, and a few even rode on the car trucks in their anxiety 
to get there in good season. As the trains moved slowly across 
the strip, the passengers could see the endless procession of wag- 
ons still M^nnding on toward the goal. When the Oklahoma 
border was reached, the "boomers" were found drawn ii]) in a 



1 Tribune Extras, vol. 1, no. 7, pp. 21-9. 

2 Ibid., pp. 29-30. 



346 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letter's. 

line awaiting the soomd of the buglei which would give them 
pennission to cross the imagiunry lin' protected by the troops. 
In the front rank were the best riders of each outfit mounted 
on their fleetest steeds, and behind were the "prairie schooners" 
and mule teams with the families and outfits driven by the 
' 'boomers' " wives/ 

At exactly twelve the blast from the bugle rent tlie air, an ex- 
iiltaut sliout came forth from the throats of the waitine' ''boom- 
ers," the quivering steeds sprang over the line, and the race for 
homes was on. Otoe by one the reckless riders disappeared over 
the crest of a hill, closely followed by buggies and buckboards 
with the rear brought up by the heavy wagons and outfits, so 
that the spot where thousands had been camped during the fore- 
noon was practically deserted wathin half an hour after the first 
man crossed the line.^ The land had been surveyed and laid 
out in mile-square sections with the comers marked by stones 
01' blazed trees, and each settler was to be allowed to "squat" 
on a quarter of one of these sections. Frequently it would 
happen that several would locate on differetoit parts of the same 
quarter-section. Each would claim priority, and each would 
m.ake improvements, and thus the way was prepared for much 
litigation and bad feeling, often leading to family feuds and 
twilight shootings.* 

Meanwhile, the first train from the north which had also 
crossed the border at the blast of the bugle had pushed on to 
Guthrie, the spot where one of the land offices was located. 
Wlien this train arrived, at half-past one, all there was of the 
future capital of Oklahoma was the railroad water-tank, a 
small station house, a shanty for the express company, and the 
government land office, a building about twenty by forty feet 
and located five hundred feet from the depot on the brow of a 
gentle rise stretching eastward from the tract. A town-site 
company had already been organized* by a few enterprising 



1 Cosmopolitan, vol. 7, p. 461. 

2 Ibid., vol. 7, p. 461. 

3 Atlantic Monthly, vol. 86, p. 329. 

4 Under the homestead laws a town-site company is permitted to 
survey and lay out in lots a district not larger than half a section, 



Buck — The Settlement of Oklalioma. 347 

deputy-mai*slials, railroad men and their friends, several hun- 
dred acres of tmvn-sit© had been stated out, and a few tenta 
erected near the land office to hold the claim. But the people 
from the train soon gi-asped the situation, and no attention was 
paid to the rights and privileges of the deputy marshals and 
their friends. The passengers made their exit from the cars 
through the windo\\"s or any other convenient oji^nings and 
scrambled pell-moll up the hillside in the wild race for to\m lots. 
Everything was in confusion, no one seemed to know whei*© the 
streets were going to nin or where he wanted to drive his stakes. 
The race was not over when a lot was staked out, for improve- 
ments had to be made in the shape of a little tent or wooden 
shanty. Many hired an enterprising man with a plow, who 
appeared on tho scene, to mark out tlieir lots with a furrow, 
but as eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, so was it the 
price of a to^\•n-lot in Guthrie that day, and the surest way to 
prevent a claim from Ixi'ing jumped was to guard it with a 
loaded revolver.^ 

At the close of the first day Guthrie was a city of nearly 
a thousand tents and several thousand inhabitants, but in a 
short time many of these tents were superseded by small frame 
structures and the city began to assume a more permanent as- 
pect. Tbe fii'st few days were largely spent in -wrangling over 
lots and in contentions between the different to^\^l-site com- 
panies. The representatives of the various companies finally 
got together and ap})ointed a committee to adjust matters, and 
this committee went around from lot tO' lot taking evidence and 
pronouncing judgment as to the rightful possessor of the 
lot. Although tbeir decisions \vere not always accepted, it 
quieted matters somcAvhat, and before the city Avas a week old 
the savage and ferocious ''boomer" with kniv^es and pistols 
sticking out all over him had quietly tucked his revolver away 
in his satdiel and appeared as a plain, ordinary, cA'^eryday 
grocer, butcher, or real estate man.^ The organization of a 



and these lots, with certain reservations excepted, are then open to 
homestead settlement. 

1 Cosmopolitan, vol. 7, p. 461. 

2 Ibid. 



348 W^isconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 

munioipal govemment began on the very first night, when the 
roll of the states was called and a representative governing com- 
mittee appointed. The next day this committee was endorsed 
by viva voce vote of the people, and they proceeded to the 
election of a mayor. Two candidates were put up, and the 
adherents of each formed in line four abreast and marched 
past a definite point to be counted ; but it was soon, discovered 
that an ingenious system of repeating was being used, and the 
election nearly broke up in a row. Finally the two candidates 
picked out a committee of six who added a seventh to their 
number, constituted themselves a nominating board and 
presented the name of Col. D. B. Dyer tO' the people for mayor. 
He was unanimously elected and at once turned all his eaiergies 
to the organization of the young municipality.^ 

Among the other disagreeable features of Guthrie life dur- 
ing the first few days was the scarcity of food and water. 
The one eating tent was continually overflowing, although the 
rate was five dollars per mical. The water in the Cimarron river 
was brackish and practically unfit to drink, and crowds hung 
around the railroad tank which was guarded by soldiers. 
To add to the unpleasantness, a sand storm arose on the third 
day and covered everything with the fine sand of the prairie. 
Many became disgusted with the situation and decided to pull 
out at the first opportunity; but they found nearly as much 
difficulty in doing so as they had in getting in. At one 
time it seemed as if the city would be depopulated, and lots 
which had pre\dously changed hands at fancy prices w'ent 
begging at five dollars. But this lasted only for a few days. 
The places of those who left were rapidly filled by newcomers, 
provisions soon became more plentiful, and the town settled 
down to a steady growth and developmeoit.^ 

One hundred days after its settlement Guthrie presented the 
appearance of an ordinary western metropolis, with its streets 
and alleys, stores, parks, boulevards and fine iron bridges. An 
excellent electric light system was in operation and the contract 



1 Tribune Extras, vol. 1, no. 7, p. 43; Cosmopolitan, vol. 7, p. 468. 

2 Tribune Extras, vol. 1, no. 7, pp. .39-42. 



Buck — The Settlement of Oklahoma. 349 

let for a street railway. It had a population of about fifteen 
thousand, most of whom were men who had not yet brought their 
families. There were about four thousand houses in the course 
of construction and several hundred tents still scattered through 
the suburbs. The city boasted five banks, fifteen hotels, three 
m,usic halls, fifty grocery stores and six printing offices with 
three daily papers. The price of lots had risen from five hunr 
dred dollars a few weeks before the opening, to between two and 
five thousand dollars, and Guthrie was well started on tlio 
fair road to prosperity.^ 

The other metropolis of Oklahoma, and the rival of Guthrie, 
was Oklahoma City, located about thirty miles further south 
on the north fork of the Canadian. This place was settled 
largely by the '"boomers" from the south who had occupied 
Pui-cell and Beaver City, and who seem to have had a larger 
proportion of speculators, confidence men and other lawless 
characters in their ranks than those from the north. ^ Therefore 
the events attending the settlement of this site, though much 
the same as those at Guthrie, were somewhat more disorderly, 
and but for the presence of the United States troops, serious 
collisions might have taken place. The troops, which were 
under the command of Brigadier-General Merrit, and later of 
Captain Styles, were stationed at Oklahoma City to preserve 
the peace and assist the marshals in carrying out their orders, 
but the situation was such that the military took entire charge 
of the city until the sixth of May and practically controlled 
the situation all summer. 

On April 21st, 'Brigadier-Genoral Mferrit issued a prodlama- 
tion announcing that the presence of the troops was to protect 
the United States government property and mails, and to guard 
the people from lawlessness and disorder.^ Soon after noon on 
the twenty-second the scramble for town lots began. The nuii- 
tary officials were constantly forced to interfere to prevent the 
honest settlers from being bulldozed out of their rights and to 
settle rows and street fights, and it was not always possible to 



1 Cosmopolitan, vol. 7, p. 468. 

2 Tribune Extras, vol. 1, no. 7, pp. 23-29. 

•t Sen. Ex. Doc, 72, 51 Cong.. 2 Sess., p. 22. 



350 Wiscmisin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 

get a marshal from whom, proper authoa'ity could be obtained. 
In fact, many of the marshals sympathized with the worst ele- 
ments in the crowd. Oil the twenty-third of April, the only 
pump in town was taken possession of by a Chicago gambler 
named Cole, who demanded five cents for every drink and en- 
forced his demands with a revolver. He was soon removed by 
the military authorities. They were also continually called 
upon to protect a settler who had homestcaded the claim just 
west of the city on which the crowd was detennined to lay out 
a town-site.^ 

On the twenty-sixth of April a call was issued signed by a 
dozen citizens of Oklahoma City for a masst-meeting on the next 
day to organize a municipal government. At this meeting it 
waa decided to elect a temporary mayor wko should make ar- 
rangements for a regular election on the first of May. W. L. 
Oouch was unanimously elected. On May 1st, a regular ballot 
election was held and Couch was again elected, according to the 
books of the city recorder. At the time the election was accept- 
ed in good faith as the expression of the will of the people, 
but later it was questioned by many. The new government 
was installed on the sixth of May and the military officials re- 
signed their control to it^ but it was absolutely powerless with- 
out their aid in enforcing its orders, and until August 5th a 
guard of from five to fourteen men was sent to towTi from the 
camp every day. After that until October 21st, from two to four 
men were sent. During this period several attempts were 
made to displace the city officials by holding new unauthorized 
elections, but as the established government was always sup- 
ported by the military authorities, these were all failures. The 
action of the military officials throughout seems to have been 
approved by all the better and more solid citizens of the new 
community, who desired a stable government, but it was late in 
the fall before the disturbing elements were finally quelled 
and the city settled down to a regular life.^ 

Several other cities were laid out and settled in Oklahoma on 



1 Sen. Ex. Doc, 72, 51 Cong., 2 Sess., pp. 30-38. 

2 Ibid., pp. 22-30. 



Buck- — The Settlement of Oklahoma. 351 

that meniiorable opening day, the principal ones being King- 
fisher, Avhere the other land offiee was located, and Xorman, 
which later became the site of the territorial nniversity. At 
each of these places the scenes and events of the first few days 
at Gntlu-ie and Oklahoma City wieTe reprodnoed on a smaller 
scale. Outside of the cities, practically all of the available 
land was taken np by would-be farmers during tlie course of a 
few days.^ The opening was too late in the spring for the farm- 
ers to do much in the way of ci*ops the first year, and so most 
of them proceeded to build rude houses and make themselves 
comfortable in their new home when not putting in their time 
quarreling over the title to their quarter-sections. Although 
a great miany of those who took up homesteads' were farmers 
who wished to better their conditions, there was also a large 
proportion of people from the otlier walks of life, who, having 
won a quarter-section in the rush, were forced to live on. it and 
turn farmers in order to prove up their claims. The demand 
for land was so great that the sections reserv^ed for the benefit 
of the schools ^^'ere readily rented during the year. 

Perhaps the most noticeable thing about the first opening in 
Oklahoma wias the imbecile policy or lack of policy of the 
government in regard to it, which led to so much confusion, 
illegality", corruption and future litigation. Although the In- 
terior department can not be blamed for the failure of Congress 
to provide suitable legislation, it still would seem that more care 
should have been exercised in providing men of integrity for 
marslials and for receivers and registers at the land offices. 
The district was supposed to have been cleared of every in- 
truder the day before the opening, and the law provided that 
"sooners" should not be allowed to homestead claims ; neverthe- 
less when the first honest settlers who crossed the line at noon 
reached the interior, they found many of the best claims all 
staked out and in possession of men who had spent the night 
hidden in the cracks of the earth or among the bushes along 
the rivers.^ 

The greatest amount of corruption seems to have been at 



1 Sec. Int. Rept., 1891, vol. 3, p. 450. 

2 Atlantic Monthly, vol. 86, p. 329. 



352 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 

Guthrie, where a veritable conspiracy was planned by the mar- 
shals and their friends. Some of the marshals used their ap- 
pointive power to make deputies of all their friends and rela- 
tives, and each one of these registered a choice claim when the 
land office was opened at noon. Many of the most valuable 
claims around the site of Guthrie were filed on by relatives and 
friends of the register at the Guthrie office, who afterward ad- 
mitted that he knew they were in the territory before the open- 
ing and had thereby sacrificed their rights to make entry.^ The 
attempted looting of the town-site of Guthrie by the "sooners" 
and their official friends has already been referred to, and the 
way in which their plans were in a measure defeated by the 
rush of honest homeseekers. A great deal of confusion in re- 
gard to town-sites was due to a defect in the law. The act of 
March 2, 1889, provided that town-site entries might be per- 
mitted after the opening, in accordance with sections 2387 and 
2388 of the revised statutes ; but these sections provide that ap- 
plication should be made through certain town or county offi- 
cers, and there were no such in Oklahoma nor any power to 
create them. So nothing could be settled without further leg- 
islation, and the land officers were instructed simply to receive 
all applications for to^vn-sites and report^ them to the general 
office without taking any action.^ 

As soon as the Interior department became aw^are of the situa- 
tion in Oklahoma a commission was sent out to investigate, and 
it reported in June 1890 that a great numl>er of town lots and 
other claims were in the possession of "sooners" who had been 
in the territory previous to the opening. These had secured 
their certificates and in some cases had sold them to others who 
were now claiming the lots. The department was kept busy 
for a long time settling contested claims, and although justice 
in every case was not to be expected, an effort seems to have 
been made to get at the true situation and deprive the "sooners" 
of their unjust possessions. A ruling of the department to the 
effect that the provision in regard to homesteading by those 

1 House Ex. Doc. 209, 51 Cong., 1 Sess'. 

2 Sec. Int. Rept., 1889, vol. 1, p. vii. 



Buck — Tile Settlement of Oklahoma. 353 

who were in tlie territory prior to tlie opening applied as well 
to those who were legally there as to intruders, deprived many 
of the deputy marshals and railroad employes of their easily 
gotten claims.^ 

The people who settled Oklahoma w^re for over a year en- 
tirely without any law or organized goremment excepting that 
established by common consent. Finally, in May 1800, an act 
was passed by Congress (26 Stats., 80) organizing them into a 
territory. This act provided that "'3.11 that portion of the 
United States now known as tJie Indian Territory, except so 
much as is actually occupied by the five civilized tribes, and 
the Indian tribes Avithin the Quapaw Agency, and except the 
unoccupied part of the Cherokee Outlet, together with that por- 
tion of the United States known as the Public Land Strip, is 
hereby erected into a temporary government by the name of 
the Territory of Oklahoma.." It was further provided that the 
Cherokee Otitlet should become a portion of the territory with- 
out further legislation as soon as the Indian title should be ex- 
tinguished, and also tliat any other lands in Indian Territory- 
might thereafter become a part of Oklahoma whenever the In- 
dian tribes owning such lands should signify their assent. 

The act established seven ooimties in the territor)^, numbered 
from one to six in Oklahoma proper, the seventh being Beaver 
countj^ in the Public Land Strip, and county seats were desig- 
nated for each. The laws of Nebraska, such as were not lo- 
cally inapplicable, were extended over Oklahoma until tlie leg- 
islature should have an opportunity to frame a new code. All 
lands in the Public Land Strip were declared open to settle- 
ment and a land office was established at Beaver, but preference 
was to be given to "all actual and bona fide settlers upon and 
occupajite of the land" at the time of the passage of the aet. 
Another act of the fourteenth of May (20 vStats., 100) re- 
lieved the town-site situation by providing for the t^tablish- 
meiit of a cx«nmission tx> take the place of the regular officers as 
trustees for the town-site. 

On the fift<x^nth of May 1800, George W. Steele was ap- 



1 Sec. Int. Rept. 1890, vol. 1. p. xlx. 
6— S. & A, 



354 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 

pointed first governor of the territory of Oklalioma, and on the 
twenty-second he assumed the duties of his office. These con- 
sisted at first in defining the boundaries of the counties, organ- 
izing county governments and appointing officers to carry out 
the provisions of the laws of ISTebraska, A census enumeration 
was immediately taken which disclosed a population of over 
sixty thousand. On the basis of this, the territory was appor- 
tioned into districts for legislative purposes, and on the fifth of 
August 1890 an election was held for members of the first legis- 
lative assembly. This assembly met August 27th, and after 
spending the greater part of the session of a hundred days in 
quarreling over the location of the capital, finally enacted a 
fair code of laws to take the place of the Nebraska code. The 
organization of the government in this youthful territory was 
now fairly complete, and it continued tO' run with veiy little 
friction.^ 

Many things combined to make the first two years in Okla- 
homa especially hard ones for the farmers on their new claink.i. 
Large numbers of them had already failed in western Kansas 
or northwestern Texas on account of drought or had been wait- 
ing on the borders of the country until their reso'urces had been 
exhausted. When we add to all this the fact that the opening 
was too late for any crops to be raised in 1889, it can readily be 
seen how dependent the farming population must have been on 
the results of the harvest of 1890. But through some strange 
freak of fate an unexampled drought occurred in that year 
which was almost fatal to the first crops throughout the new 
territory. Under such circumstances it was but to be ex- 
pected that destitution and suffering would be prevalent 
among' Oklahoma's ill-fated citizens, and urgent measures of 
relief were necessary. The governor made an appeal to 
Oongress, and on the first of September a resolution was 
passed (26 Stats., 679) appropriating a generous sum for re- 
lieving the destitute in the new territory. The Atchison, 
Topeka and Santa Fg, and the Ohicago and Eock Ifc»land 
railroads did their share toward relieving the situation 



1 Stec. Int. Rept., 1891, vol. 3, pp. 449-450. 



Bud' — Tile Settlement of OlcJahoma. 355 

by fumisliing seed wlieat to the fanners at actual cost 
without transportation charge, to be paid for out of the 
crop without interest. With this help and that of favorable 
weather conditions, abundant crops were produced in all lines 
in 1891, and the farmers were well started on the road to 
prosperity.^ 

THE CHEKOKEE STRIP AND OTHER OPENINGS. 

The act of March 2, 1889 (25 Stats., 1004), by which Okla- 
homa proper was opened to settlement, also established a com- 
mission of three members to be appointed by the President to 
negotiate with the Cherokees and all other Indians 0"\\Tiing 
or claiming land west of the ninety-sixth parallel in Indian 
Territory, for the cession of all title in such lands to the United 
States. This body, known as the Cherokee commission, pro- 
ceeded at once to negotiate treaties or agi'eements with the 
lowas. May 20, the Sacs and Foxes, June 12, thePottawatomies 
and Absentee Shawnees, June 25 and 26, and the Cheyennes 
and Arapalioes, October 18, 1890. By these treaties the sev- 
eral tribes agi'eed to take up land in severalty and to relin- 
quish to the United States the remainder of their reservations, 
Tracts 2, 4, 7 and 13, Plate XII. 

By an act of Congress of February 13, 1891 (26 Stats., 
T49), the Iowa and Sac and Fox agreements were ratified and 
the President was authorized to open the land to settlement. 
Another act of March 3rd (26 Stats., 1016) ratified the agree- 
ments with the Pbttawatomies and Shawnees, and the Chey- 
ennes and Arapahoes, and appropriated nearly three million 
dollars to pay the Chickasaws and Choctaws, who also had a 
claim over part of the Cheyenne and Arapahoe reservation, for 
all interest in the lands ceded by themi in trust to the United 
States in 1866. 

The allotments to the Indians having been completed in all 
these reservations except the Cheyenne and ArapaJioe, the Pres- 
ident issued a proclamation September 18, 1891, opening the 
remaining nine hundred and forty-one thousand acres of the 



1 Sec. Int. Rept., 1891, vol. 3, pp. 450-451. 



356 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 

Iowa, Sac and Fox, and Pottawatomie and Shawnee reserva- 
tions to settlement after twelve o'clock noon, September 22nd/ 
All lands in Oklahoma had been free to homesteaders up' to 
this time, but the act of May 2, 1890, which organized the ter- 
ritory, provided that when any lands purchased from the In- 
dians should thereafter be opened, the settler should pay the 
United States a sum per acre equal to the amoim,t paid by the 
United States to extinguish the Indian title but in no case less 
than a dollar and a quarter. In accordance with this law, 
the homesteaders on these newly-opened lands were obliged to 
pay from a dollar and a quarter to a dollar and a half per acre 
for their farms. This act also provided that ''no person who 
shall at the time be seized in fee simple of one hundred and 
sixty acres of land in any state o^* territory, shall hereafter be 
entitled to enter land in said Territoay of Oklahoma." 

In spite of these restrictions, twenty thousand people gathered 
on the borders of the reservation in anticipation of the opening, 
and when the signal was given the rush which took place was 
similar to that of 1889. EJvery available quarter-section was 
taken for a homestead before sunset of the opening day." Res- 
ervations had been made for county-seats at Tecumseh and 
Chandler, and when these were opened during the next few 
days tlie usual wild scramble for lots took place. There were five 
thousand people awaiting the signal to enter and only twenty- 
four hundred lots at each place. A great many speculators 
and others who had no intention of settling on the site took 
part in the nish and then sold their claims to lots to the honest 
settlers who wished to make homes on them. The evils 
of this system of opening town-sites v/ere so great that the Sec- 
retary of the Interior recommended that in future openings 
the lots should be sold by the government at a low valuation.^ 
However, with the advantage of. a territorial organization al- 
ready established, and with careful nianagement on the part of 
the officers, the second opening in Oklahoma was on the whole 



1 Sec. Int. Rept. 1891, vol. 1, p. iv. 

2 Ibid. 

3 Ibid., vol. 3, p. 453. 



o 

> 
o 

w 
w 

o 

H 

n 
a 

o 

o 

CO 




Buck — The ScHlement of Ohlahoma. 357 

successfully c-arried out, and the former reservations soon be- 
came an integral part of the territory.^ 

It had been the intention of tlie Interior department to open 
the Cheyenne and Arapahoe resen-ations at the same time as 
the others which had teen ceded, but delay had occun-ed in 
assigning the allotments to the Indians. Although they had 
agreed to take up land in severalty, when the time came they 
at first refused to act, and then, when finally induced to ful- 
fill their part of the agi-eement, the supply of money for it ran 
short." However, the difficulties were all settled by spring, and 
on April 12, 1892, the President issued a proclamation open- 
ing to settlement at twelve o'clock noon, April 22nd, the three 
million acres remaining after the Indian allotments had been 
made. This reservation (Tract 4, Plate XII), lying as it 
does in the same belt as drought-stricken western Kansas, was 
looked upon with suspicion by the people of tlie Southwest. 
However, the eastern part was nearly all taken up during the 
summer, and quite a nimaber of successful farms were located 
in the western part, which proved to be a fairly good agricul- 
tural region.^ 

A^^ien the Cherokee commission was established, it was auth- 
orized to offer to the Cherokees for their Outlet tlie same terms 
as those upon which the Creeks had given up their western 
claimg, that is a dollar and a quarter per acre, deducting all pre- 
vious payments. The Indians, however, did not look with favor 
upon this proposition, as they ^vere already getting a good in- 
come from the cattle leases and the corporations were offering to 
make a new fifteen year lease at a much higher rate.* In order 
to get rid of this coniijetition, the Department of the Interior 
decided to consider these leases as invalid, and on the seven- 
teenth of Februai-y, 1890, a proclamation was issued ordering 
that all live stock be removed from the Strip before October 1st. 
The time was afterwards extended to Xovember 1st, and then 



1 Sec. Int. Rept., 1891, vol. 1, p. Iv. 

2 Ibid., p. V. 

3 Ibid., 1892, vol. 3. p. 474. 

4 Ibid., 1889, vol. 1, p. xiii. 



358 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 

later to December Ist.^ But the Cherokees still held out, and it 
"Was not until December 19, 1891, that an agreement was finally 
ratified by their Council by which they were to receive eight 
and a half million dollars for their interest in the six million 
acres of the Outlet. Agreements had also been made with the 
Tonkawas or l^ez Perces, October 21, 1891, and with the Paw- 
nees, jSTovember 21, 1891, for allotments and the cession of the 
surplus. These, together with the unassigned part of the Chero- 
kee Outlet, made 6,361,135 acres in all, to be opened to set- 
tlement. 

On March 3, 1893, Congress passed an act (26 Stats., 640) 
ratifying these agreements, with some slight changes in that 
with the Cherokees, and providing for the opening of the land 
to homesteaders at a price ranging from one dollar to two and 
a half dollars, according to location. This act contained an 
important innovation, in that it provided that "no person shall 
be permitted to occupy or enter upon any of the lands herein 
referred to, except in tlie manner prescribed by the proclama- 
tion of the President opening the same to settlement. . . 
The Secretary of the Interior shall, under the direction of 
the President, prescribe rules and regulations, not inconsist- 
ent with this act., for the occupation and settlement of said 
lands, to be incoi-porated in the proclamation of the President, 
which shall be issued at least twenty days before the time fixed 
for the opening of said lands.'.' The changes in their agree- 
ment were formally accepted by the Cherokees on the seven- 
teenth of May, and on August 19, 1893, the President 
issued his jDroclamation.^ It provided for a system of certifi- 
cates for would-be settlers, by which speculators and un- 
qualified persons were to be kept from occupying claims and 
then selling them to homesteaders as had occurred in the other 
openings. 

A narrow strip all around the Outlet was to be open to tem- 
porary occupation beginning September 11, 1893, and on this 
strip nine booths were to be estaljlished, five on the north and 



1 Sec. Int. Rept, vol. 1, p. xxxvi; 1891, vol. 1, p. clvi. 

2 Ibid., 1893, vol. 1, p. x. 

<ti.,_> . . . 



Buck — The Settlement of Oklahoma. 359 

four on the south. These booths were to be kept open ten hourjs 
daily from September 11th until discontinued, and every person 
who desired to enter was to be required to appear at one of the 
booths and make a declaration in writing before one of the offi- 
cers, showing his qualifications to initiate a claim. A certifi- 
cate was then to be issued entitling the holder to enter after the 
opening, and the military officials who guarded the line were 
to let no one in without such certificates until the booths were 
discontinued. The certificates were to be issued in different 
forms for homestead and for to^^^l lot entry.^ 

The opening of the Outlet had been so extensively advertised 
by the railroad companies and the public press, that when the 
booths were opened, the rush for certificates was so great as to 
necessitate the employment of additional help and the ereo- 
tion of new booths ; but although the number of applicants 
vastly exceeded the expectations of the officials, all those who 
were qualified were supplied with certificates before the hour ^f 
opening. There was considerable suffering at times among the 
thousands who were waiting to register, on account of the in- 
tense heat and stifling dust. Then, too, when twenty thousand 
people crowded around a single booth the water supply often 
ran short, for it was impossible to locate all the booths at places 
at once suitable for entry and provided with a sufficient supply 
of water. But aside from these unavoidable hardships, the 
plan was carried to a successful conclusion, and prevented to a 
large ext-ent the wrongful occupation which had marred the 
first opening.- 

Twelve o'clock noon, the sixteenth of September, 1893, was 
fixed as the opening hour, and at tliat time an area larger than 
many of the states was added to the public domain. One him- 
dred and fifteen thousand certificates had been issued from the 
different booths, and it is presimiable that at least one hundred 
thousand people took part in this, the wildest and most excit- 
ing run for homes that ever took place. The fertile eastern 
half of the Strip and the Pa\vTiee and Nez Perces reservations 



1 Sec. Int. Rept, 1893, vol. 1, pp. x-xi. 

2 Ibid., p. xi. 



360 Wiscondn Academy of Sciences; Arts, and Letters. 

were completely occupied before sunset, and large numbers 
overflowed into the drier western parts.^ 

Tlie Govenior of tlie territory says in his report for 1893 
that although the booth, system did a vast amount of good in 
keeping out illegal claimants, there was still, in spite of all the 
faithful officials could do, a large number of ''sooners" who took 
possession of some of the best land and lots.^ The Secretary of 
the Interior also reported that, ''while the opening of the Strip 
last September was relieved of many difficulties^ by the regular 
tions legally made, yet it must be confessed that the manner of 
entry was not satisfactory. '"^ 

The act under which this region was opened authorized tl'e 
President and the Secretary of the Interior to divide it into 
counties and to establish one or more new land districts at 
their discretion. Acting under this authority, the Secretaiy di- 
vided the region into seven counties, two large ones in the west- 
ern part and five smaller ones in the eastern, while Payne 
county in original Oklahoma was given an extension in the Out- 
let. Three land districts were established with offices at Alva, 
Enid and Perry, autl ue P< a^'e^ district was extcided ro in- 
clude the western county, the office being moved to Woodward. 
The Secretary also reserved about half a section in the center 
of each county for county seats, and these were settled in the 
same manner as Tecumseh and Chandler had been, except that 
the system of certificates acted as a check on speculation. 
So'metimes the speculators started rival towns near the estab- 
lished ones, and, when tliey could get the favor of the rail- 
road, were able seriously to embarrass the development of the 
official, sites."* But these were only minor difficulties and did 
not aifect tlie general development of the Strip, which went on 
so rapidly that within a year the population and reso'uroes of 
Oklahoma had been doubled. 



1 Sec. Int. Rept, 1893, vol. 3, p. 460. 

2 Ibid. 

3 Ibid. 

■t Ibid., vol. 1, p. xii. 



Buck- — llie Settlonout of (JhUilionta. 361 



A DECADE OF GROWTH. 

After the opening of the ("lierokee Strip in 1893, tlie terri- 
torv' of Okhihoma enjoyed a decade of steady, rapid gro^vth, 
with bnt one period of boom when the Wichita and the Kiowa, 
Comanche and Apache reservations were settled in 1901. Dur- 
ing this period tlie population advanced from two hundred and 
fifty thousand in 1894 to five hundi-ed and fifty thousand in 
1902, the valuation of taxable property in the same period 
from $19,948,000 to $72,677,000, and the amount of occupied 
land from 7,870,000 acres to 17,230,000 acres. Besides the 
opening mentioned above, which will be discussed later^ 
the Kickapoo Indian reservation (Tract 14, Plate XII) 
was made available to settlement in May 1895. The agreement 
with the Kickapoos had been made Jime 21, 1891, but was not 
ratified by Congress until March 3, 1893 (27 Stats., 557). 
After the Indian allotments had been made, the territorial 
government selected about one hundred thousand acres of this 
land as indemnity school land in lieu of that which was lost 
by being in the Osago Indian resciwation, and this left only 
about fifty thousand acres open to homestead settlement, enough 
for some three hundred farms. But the school land was rap- 
idly leased out, and the reservation was soon all under culti- 
vation,^ 

The next addition to the jurisdiction of Oklahoma Terri- 
toTY was made in March, 1896, when the Supreme Court finally 
decided the dispute over Greer county in favor of the United 
States. The Chickasaw and Choctaw Indians had also ad- 
vanced a claim to interest in this district, so the President, in 
order to prevent complications, issued a proclamation declaring 
the land in this region to be not yet open to settlement.- The 
claim of the Indians having proved to be -without foundation, 
Congress passed an act on January 18, 1897 (25 Stats., 490), 
providing for the opening of the land. Preference was to be 
given to all actual settlers and occupants at the time of the pas- 



1 Sec. Int. Rept, 1895, vol. 3, p. 524. 
- Ibid., 1896, vol. 1, p. 108. 



362 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences,, Arts, and Letters. 



sage of the aot^ who were also to be alloiwed to purchase land al- 
ready in use in addition to the one hundred and sixty acre 
homestead at one dollar per acre. Sections 16 and 36 of each 
township were as usual reserved for the public schools, and also 
sections 13 and 23 for such purposes as the legislature of the 
"future state of Oklahoma may prescribe." The intention 
probably was that these should be used for the benefit of higher 
institutions of learning. Under this act the county was open- 
ed to settlement on the twenty-fourth of June, 1897. A land 
ofiice was established at Mangum, and the land was gradually 
taken up.-"^ 

Because of physical conditions, siTch as soil and situation, 
Oklahoma is, for the present at least, primarily an agricultii* 
ral region, and so the settlement of the territory can best be 
traced in the occupation of the land. For this pui-pose, the 
following table, wliich shows the percentage of the availab'- 
or unreserved land occupied in each county from 1894 to 1902, 
has been compiled from the reports of the General Land Office : 

Table showing pfircentasre of unreserved land occupied in each 
county from 1894 to 1902. 





1894 


1895 


1896 


1897 


1898 


1899 


1900 


1901 


1902 




4 

S9 


5 
92 


5 
96 


11 

96 


12 
94 


12 
95 


13 

99 


14 
100 


17 




99 


PnHHo 


99 




99 
100 


99 
100 


99 
100 


99 
100 


99 
100 


99 
100 


99 
100 


100 
100 


99 




100 




99 




58 

1 

22 

99 

98 


63 
3 

32 
100 

99 

"'99 
99 


72 

3 

38 

100 

99 

■■■99' 
99 


74 
5 

40 
99 

99 
12 
100 
99 


80 

6 

49 

100 

99 
P6 
100 
99 


91 
15 

69 
100 

99 
69 
100 

99 


92 
22 
84 
100 

99 
73 
100 
99 


99 
47 
97 
100 

99 
85 
100 
100 


99 


Day 


68 




96 


Garfield 


100 


Grant 


99 
95 




99 
99 


100 




99 




99 




100 
100 

99 
100 

93 

99 
100 
42 
75 
60 

6 
51 


99 
100 

99 
100 

98 

100 

100 

44 

85 
67 

8 
54 


99 
100 

99 
100 

97 

99 
100 
45 
87 
71 

10 

55 


99 
100 
100 
100 

99 

99 
100 
46 

88 
74 

25 
54 


99 
100 
100 
100 

99 

100 

100 

72 

96 

78 

28 
60 


99 
100 
100 
100 

99 

100 

100 

74 

99 

87 

31 

64 


99 
100 
100 
100 

99 

100 

100 
79 
99 
92 

40 

67 


99 
100 
100 
100 

99 

100 
100 
81 
99 
97 

66 
74 


99 




100 


Noble 


100 




100 




99 




100 




100 




96 


Washita 


99 




99 


Woodward 


83 
82 







1 Sec. Int. Kept, 1897, vol. 1, pp. 99-102, 125. 



Bv£k — The Setilement of OJclalwma. 363 

The first thing noticeable about this table is that in 1894, 
the year after the Cherokee Outlet was opened, practicallv all 
of the available land east of the western line of Grant, Garfield, 
Kingfisher and Canadian counties (see Plate XIV) was 
taken up, the percentage being ninety-eight or above in every 
county except Pawnee, where it was ninety-five. Indeed, thi«? 
land was not only all talcen up in 1894, but its occupation was 
practically contemporaneous with its opening and oft€n there 
were two or even three qualified entrymen for each quarter-sec- 
tion. This gi-eat demand for land in eastern Oklahoma illustrates 
the fact, which the American people are gTadually begiuning to 
comprehend, that we have at last taken complete possession of 
our apparently unlimited heritage, that the frontier, so famous 
in American history, has finally disappeared, and that further 
agricultural development must be intensive rather than ex- 
tensive.^ 

In western Oklahoma, we find in 1894, Greer, Caddo, Co- 
manche and Kiowa counties not yet being opened, a percent- 
age of occupied land running from about five in Beaver, Wood- 
ward and Day, to eighty-nine in Blaine, and averaging fifty 
in the intervening counties. It will be seen that the westward 
advance is greater in the southern counties, so that the lines of 
equal settlement would run from northeast to southwest. The 
first of the western counties to join the ranks of those whose 
settlement was practically complete, which for convenience we 
may consider to be when ninety-five per cent of the land is oc- 
cupied, was Blaine, which rose froml eighty-nine per cent in 
1894 to ninety-six per cent in 1896 ; and this was soon followed 
by Washita, which advanced from seventy-five ptn- cent in 1894 
to ninety-six per cent in 1898. 

Presdous to 1898, the advance in the next tier of counties. 
Woods, Dewey and Custer, had been slow though gradual ; but 
with the occupation of all available land in Blaine and Wash- 
ita, these counties began to take rapid strides, and in 1901 all 
three joined the column of settled counties. The inci-ease in 
the rate of settlement all along tlie line in the years from 1900 



1 Sec. Int. Rept, 1891, vol. 1, p. 49. 



364 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, aaid Letters. 

on was due to several different things. In the first place, the 
territory enjoyed exceptionally abundant harv^ests in 1899 and 
1900, and this prosperity of the Oklahoma fanners was exten- 
sively advertised throughout the Union by the different advauce- 
ment associations and railroads interested. Elaoh siunmer the 
railroads ran frequent homeseekers' excursions at very low 
rates, bringing thousands of people into the oountr)^ many of 
whom reanained. Moreover, the old fashioned mode of migra- 
tion had not become obsolete, for, as the Governor reports 'n 
1898, ''not a day during the year but the white-topped prairie 
schooner can be seen wending its wa}^ from north, south, east 
or west toward a new abiding place in Oklahoma."^ 

Another cause of the increased rate of settlement in western 
Oklahoma in these years was the ultimate success of the 
agitation for free homes. As has been shoAATi, a price of at 
least a dollar and a quarter per acre was charged of homestead- 
ers on all land in Oklahoma except that included in the first 
opening of 1889 and in the Public Land Strip. The settlers 
of the territory were luianimous in feeling that this was an un- 
just discrimination, since the public domain had hitherto been 
free to homesteadersi, and as early as 1892 local organizations 
were formed to agitate the subject. In 1894 the Hepublican 
party in the temtory took up the cause and elected Hon. D'. T. 
Flynn delegate to Congress to urge the issue, which he did, de- 
claring that the people were entitled to free homes as a matter 
of right and justice. In 1895 a free homes convention was held 
at Perry, and a league was organized to carry on the work. 
The legislature of the territory appropriated five hundred dol- 
lars to further the objects of the league and to secure the desired 
legislation. In 1896 tlie agitation became general, and each of 
the three leading national party platforms declared for free 
homes on all public land. Even then, when success seemed 
assured, the effoiis of all the congressmen from the public land 
states failed to secure its passage by both houses until May 14, 
1900.2 



1 Int. Dept. Misc. Repts., 1898, p. 726. 

2 Ibid., 1901, pt. 2, p. 402. 



i 




Buck — The Settlement of (JIdahoinn. ^>C}'t 

The passage of this act was beneficial to Oklahoma in diverse 
ways. The fnll payment had not been required until the final 
proving up of a claim, and the many thousands of farmers who 
had not yet made filial proof found themselves suddenly fi*om 
•one to three hundred dollars richer. The Grovemor estimated 
that this act saved to tlie homesteaders in Oklahoma about 
fifteen million dollars, nearly all of which made its appearance 
in new houses and bams, additional stock and other improve- 
ments, and thus contributed materially to the general prosi>er- 
ity of the territory. Another result was the attraction of im- 
migration to the western part of the territory, where many farm- 
ers who had hesitated to take up land at a dollar and a quarter 
per acre were now eager to settle when all price was removed,^ 

In the siumiuer of 1901, the three counties of Caddo, Kiowa 
and Comanche were opened, to settlement and, as may be seen 
by the table for 1902, entirely settled within a year. In fact, 
owing to the system employed by the government, one hundred 
and sixty-four thousand people were attracted to this opening, 
and as there were homiesteads for only thirteen thousand in the 
reservations to be opened, there were one hundred and fifty- 
one thousand disappointed people left in the territory'. ^ Most 
of these had come prepared to stay, go large numbers merely 
went west to the counties of Roger Mills and Greer, and filed 
on nearly all of the remaining land there. Woodward and Day 
also made a big advance in this year, and even in Beaver the 
rate of settlement increased considerably. 

At present, then, we have praxjtically all available land 
in Oklahoma occupied except in the three nortliwestern coun- 
ties of Beaver, Woodward and Day, where the remaining land 
is suited only to grazing and is now used by unauthorized stock- 
raisers. An agitation has been going on for some time to 
bring about some different disposition of this land, the Gover- 
nor having at times recommended that it be leased to the cattle- 
men or donated to the territory,"^ and again that it be opened to 



1 Int. Dept, Misc. Repts., 1901, pt. 2. p. 402. 

2 Sec. Int. Rept., 1901, p. Ixxxvi. 

3 Int. Dept., Misc. Repts., 1897, p. 682. 



366 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 

homesteaders in whole sections, so that the settler can have 
enough land to engage in cattle-raising with profit,^ Should 
the latter suggestion be followed, the land in these counties 
will probably soon be taken up, but otherwise, little further 
occupation can be expected until some feasible means of irri- 
gation is discovered^ 

THE GOVEENMENT^S LAND LOTTERY. 

The last opening of Indian reservations in Oklahoma Ter- 
ritory took place in the simimer of 1901, when the reservations 
formerly occupied by the Wichita and the Kiowa, Cbmanche 
and Apache tribes (Tracts 3 and 8, Plate XII) were given 
over to white settleiment. The Wichita reservation (Tract 8) 
had been treated for by the Cherokee commission, June 4, 
1891, and at the time of the Cheyenne and Arapahoci opening, 
the Secretary of the Interior, expecting this reservation to fol- 
low within a year, had designated it county 'T" and located 
the county seat. However, the opening did not take place as 
expected, for Congress failed to ratify the agreement until 
March 2, 1895 (26 Stats., 895), and then, owing to legal tech- 
nicalities encountered in carrying out the Indian allotments 
provided for, it was again delayed until 1901.^ The agreement 
with the Kiowas, Oomanches and Apaches had been made by 
the commission October 21, 1892, and provided for allotments 
of one hundred and sixty acres each in severalty to the Indians, 
and the reservation of four hundred and eighty thousand acres 
for grazing land. This was ratified by Congress June 6, 1900 
(31 Stats., 678), and the Indian allotments having been com- 
pleted in this and the Wichita reservations, another act was 
passed March 3, 1901 (31 Stats., 1093), providing for the 
opening of the remaining land tO' settlement. 

This act provided that the lands should be opened by proclam- 
ation of the President, and, "to avoid the contests and con- 
flicting claims which have hitherto resulted from opening simi- 
lar lands to settlement and entry, the President's proclamation 

1 Int. Dept, Misc. Repts., 1900, pt. 2, p. 671. 

2 Ibid., 1899, pt. 2, p. 742. 



Buck — The Settlement of Oklahoma. 3GT 

shall prescribe the manner in whieli these lands may be settled 
upon, occupied and entered by persons entitled thereto under 
the acts ratifying said agreements, respectively, and no per- 
son shall be permitted to settle upon, occupy or enter any of 
said lands except as prescribed in such proclamation until after 
the expiration of sixty days from the time when the same are 
opened to settlement and entry." 

It provided that the Secretary of the Interior should sub- 
divide the reser\"ation into counties and resen^e three hun- 
dred and twenty acres for county seats in each. This was 
to be surveyed and platted to make a town-site and the lots were 
to be sold at auction, no person being allow^ed to purchase more 
than one business and one residence lot. The receipts were to 
be used to build a court house at each place, to pay the expenses 
of the county governments until the first collection of taxes and 
for the construction of roads and bridges. Two land districts 
were to be established, with offices at El Eeno and the county 
seat nearest to Fort Sill. 

In accordance with this act, President McKinley issued his 
proclamation on July 4, 1901, opening the unreserved lands to 
entry after nine A. M., August 6th, and prescribing the manner 
of entry. It was provided that from July 10th to July 2G, 1901, 
the land offices at El Eeno and Lawton near Fort Sill should 
be open for the registration of all desiring to homestead land in 
the reservations. The applicant was to give proof of his qual- 
ifications to make entry, and then be given a certificate per- 
mitting him to go upon and examine the lands. The order in 
which these registered applicants were to be allowed to make 
entry was to be determined by drawings for both districts to 
take place at El Reno beginning July 29, 1901. Entry was to 
begin August 6, 1901, in the order established by the dramng, 
and to continue at the rat© of one himdred and twenty-five a 
day, and not imtil after sixty days was the land to be open to 
settlement under the homestead laws.^ 

On the 21st of June, Secretary Hitchcock established the 
counties of Caddo, Comanche and Kiowa, and Roger Mills, 



1 Sec. Int. Rept, 1901, p. ccxi. 



368 Wisconsin Acadeiny of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 

Washita and Oanadian were given slight extensions into the 
nefw districts in order to rectify their boimdaries. The Secre- 
tary designated Hon. W. A, Richards, assistant ooonmissiomer 
of tJie g'eneral land office, to takei ckarge of the opening under 
his instructions, and full powers were given to him.^ The as- 
sistant coinmissioner immediately proceeded to locate, reserve 
and survey the three county seats of Anada.rko, Lawton and 
Hobart, and tJien took ohairge of the registration. Estimating 
that threei-foiirths of the entries would register at El Eeno, 
twenty-five of the thirty-three land office clerks were sent there, 
and the other eight were sent to the Lawton office which was 
for the time being located at Fort Sill.- Many of those who 
registered at Fort Sill came in wagons and went into camp in 
the valley of Cache Greek upon the military reservation. 
At times there were ten thousand people camped there, but 
good order prevailed throughout, both in camp and at the reg- 
istration booth, which closed at six P. M., July 26th, with a 
total registration of twenty-nine thousand. The clerks were 
then transported to El Reno to assist in the drawing.^ 

At El Reno, six booths w^ere opened for registration at nine 
A. M. July 10th. Here there were several thousands in line, 
many of whom had been waiting for twenty-four hours or more 
to register, and as there were quite a number of women among 
them, the conunissioner at once established an extra booth ex- 
clusively for women. At first there was some disorder around 
several of the booths due to the eagerness to register early, but 
as soon as it was explained thati all applicants would stand an 
equal show, no matter when they registered, the disorder 
ceased ; and thereafter there was very little disturbance of 
any kind in the city, in spite of the fact that for thirty days it 
had to care for ten times its noniial population. On July 13th 
an accident occurring to the pumping machinery of the El 
Reno waterworks threatened a serious situation, but the city 
officials stationed casks of ice water at convenient places on the 



1 Sec. Int. Rept., 1901, pp. Ixxiv, ccxliv. 

2 Ibid., pp. ccviii-cclix. 

3 Ibid., p. cclix. 



Bach' — The iSettleinent of Oklahoma. 369 

street and no effort was spared to keep the people supplied. 
The watenvorks were speedily repaired, but the drinking places 
proved so useful that they were retained throughout the regis- 
tration. After the second day no unregistered applicants were 
left in front of the booths when they closed at night, although 
the incoming trains brought crowds vastly exceeding the ex- 
pectations of the officials and running the total registration at 
El Reno to 135,416 when it closed on July 26th.' 

On July 11th, the day after the registration began, a force 
of clerks was employed in separating by districts and arranging 
in order the applications and identification cards which had 
been filled out by each applicant, and these latter were placed 
in blank envelopes md sealed. When the registration was 
closed, all the clerks were employed at this work, which was 
completed at 4 P.. M. Sunday, July 28th. The Secretary of 
the Interior had appointed a commission of two public men 
to sui>erintend the drawing in conjmiction with Assistant 
Conmiissionea* Richards, and these three met July 25th and 
readily agreed upon a plan for the drawing.- 

In accordance with the plan decided upon, a platform 
was erected in the street facijig the high schooil ground's^ 
which rose gradually froan the platfonni and afforded ample 
space for the crowds to witness the dramng. Two boxes, ten 
feet long, two and one-half feet wide and two and one-half feet 
deep were cons'tinicted and bolts placed in each to seiwe as 
pivots for revolving them. There were three large openings 
on one side of each for receiving the envelopes and five num- 
bered holes on the other to admit the hand for the drawing. On 
the morning of Monday, July 29th, the boxes were placed on 
trestles on the platform and the envelopes brought up and 
separated according to districts, those for one district being 
buff^ and for the other white. With much care to avoid any 
possible charge of unfairness, the envelopes were put into the 
respective boxes, the openings sealed and the boxes revolved 
until the lots were thoroughly mixed. Ten young men under 



1 Sec. Int. Rept., 1901, pp. cclx-cclxi. 

2 Ibid., pp. cclxi-cclxii. 

7— S. & A. 



370 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences,, Arts, and Letters. 

age were selected to draw, and it having been determined by 
lot which should draw first, twenty-five envelopes were drawn 
in order from the five openings in the El Reno box. Elach 
one as drawn was passed to the commissioners, numbered con- 
secutively, opened, and the name and description read to tht 
people. The El Reno box was then closed, and the same number 
were drai^ra from the La^^-ton box, after which the session 
was adjounied until two o'clock, A great deal of interesc 
was manifested by the people in this draM'ing, and fully 
thirty thousand were present. The crowd greeted the an- 
nouncement of each name with great applalise. ^ 

In the afternoon, five hundred lots were drawn from 
each box in the saane manner, except that the announcements 
were made by typewritten lists read to the people and posted 
on bulletin boards and afterwards printed in all the Oklahoma 
and many Kansas, Missouri and Texas dailies. A force of 
cierka was also engaged in preparing postcards which were 
sent out a;s fast as possible to those whose names were drawn, 
notifying them of the fact. The drawing continued at the 
rate of two thousand a day until sixty-five hundred were 
drawn from each box, that being the estinnated number of pos- 
sible homesteads in each district. The boxes were then re- 
moved to a building, the rest of tlie envelo^pes drawn in the 
same mamier, and notices mailed tO' all so that each applicant 
might know that his name was placed in the box and duly 
drawn." 

On theinoniing of August 6th, at seamen A. M., the land 
offices at El Reno and Lawton were opened for the entry of 
land. Each office was provided with a large map of the dis- 
trict showing the smallest legal subdivision, and each entry 
was marked oil' as made. These maps were accessible to all 
who wished to make entry and proved to be of great service 
to both applicants and officials. On the first day the first one 
hundred and twenty-five names were called in order at each of- 
fice, and the lucky holders of these numbers, having been allowed 



1 Sec. Int. Rept., 1901, pp. cclxii-cclxiii. 

2 Ibid., pp. cclxiii-cclxiv. 



Buck— The Sdthment of Ol-lahoma. 371 

to examine the land after registration, now nuule entry of 
the quarter-sections selected. Any who failed to appear were 
passed until the close of the day, when they were called 
again, and if they did not appear then their right to enter was 
forfeited. Veiy feav failed to appear during the first few 
days, but as the good clainis grew scarcer the proportion who 
failed to appear increased. Many v»ho held high numbers 
and lived at a distance made no effort to secure a claim, and 
othei"s were probably deterred by hiclcness or accident. The 
entries under the proclamation ended on October 4, 1901, with 
5895 entries at Lawtou, and 5743 at El Reno, or 11,038 in all.^ 

The sale of the lots in the to\m-sites was also under the 
direction of Assistant Cbmmissioner Richards, w^ho appointed 
as conmiissioners to hare charge of such sale, J. R. Hampton 
for Lawton, O. O. Xesler for Anadarko, and El. P. Holcombe 
for Hobart. Proper auctioneers and clerks were chosen to 
assist the commissioners, and at 9 A. ]\I. August 6th, the sale 
opened at each town-site. The commissioners were somewhat 
inconvenienced by the lack of acconmiodations at the sites, but 
managed to get along with tents and temporary structures. 
The sale proceeded regiilarly and rapidly at each site with no 
disturbance whatever, all the lots being sold before the auction 
closed, and at prices considerably higher than was expected. 
At Lawton there were 1422 lots wdiich sold for $414,845; at 
Anadarko, 1129 lots at $188,455; and at Hobart, 1308 lots 
at $132,733. Deducting the total expense of surv^eying and 
laying out each site together with the expenses of the sale, the 
three county seats had left to their credit the sums of $410,- 
594; $185,149; and $129,175 respectively, which was sufficient 
to start each county on a sound financial basis.^ 

The President's proclamation had provided that other town 
sites might be located under the homestead laws, though not 
near to the ccjunty seats, and eleven applications for such were 
accepted during the sixty days. Since then^ several more 
have been located.' Although the number of homestead entries 



1 Sec. Int. Rept., 1901, pp. cclxvii-cclxviii. 

2 Ibid., pp. cclxiv-cclxvi. 

3 Ibid., pp. ccxlii, cclxvii. 



372 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences,, Arts, and Letters. 

during the sixty days fell fifteen hundred below the estimated 
number of quarter-sections, it seems that nearly all the desir- 
able farms were taken, and what miay have been left were im- 
mjediately entered under the homestead laws wheai the sixty days 
limit had expired. Thus onoe more a large area, this time 
abont two million acres, excluding the Indian grazing land, the 
military reservation and the (Wichita forest reserve, was added 
to the jurisdiction of Oklahoma territory and settled within a 
year, with a population of nearly seventy-five thousand people. 
The system under which the last great opening in Oklahoma 
was carried on evoked considerable criticism from the public 
press on account of its lotter)' aspects, and was branded by one 
writer as morally and econoniically wrong,^ but when we con- 
sider the people who were most deeply interested, the applicants 
themselves, we find almost universal satisfaotion and no com- 
plaint of unfairness or injustice." Of course the fact that over 
ten times as many people were drawn to tlie opening as could get 
homesteads seems to be a defect in the system, but the disap- 
pointed ones calmly packed up and returned home or "\\'ended 
their way to western Oklahoma to trj' their luck in another lotr 
tery where the prize was not the land, but sufficient rainfall to 
make the land productive. Ctertainly this metliod of opening 
large tracts of land was far better than any previously employed, 
for it did away altogether with the "sooner" element and the 
litigation over conflicting claims.^ 

THE PEOPLE WHO SETTLED OKLAHOMA. 

A question which immediately presents itself in consider- 
ing tlie settlement of Oklahoma is, who are the jx^ople who 
have settled the territory and where did they come from? 
Although this question has been touched upon incidentally in 
other places, it will be well to consider it here by itself. Tlie 
best source of information on the subject is of course the United 
States census for 1900, whei-e we find that in that year the 



1 John G. Speed, Outlook, July 20, 1901. 

2 Sec. Int. Bept., 1901, p. cclxviil. 

3 Ibid., p. Ixxvi. 



Buck — 'The iSeitlement of Oklalioma. 



373 



population of Oklalioma was 398,331.^ While it has increased 
greatly in the years succeeding that census, it is neces- 
saiy to take these figures as the standard for our consideration, 
as the statistics cannot be obtained for the later years. 

The only Avay to get any figures as to the numbers who 
migrated from difi"ei*ent states to Oklahoma seems to be to take 
the general nativity tables of the census, which show the place of 
birth of the inhabitants. While, of course, many of the settlers 
of Oklahoma did not come there directly fromi the state of their 
birth but had often migTated once or twice before, probably the 
only chang-es necessary- in these figures to make them show the 
immediate sources of migration would be to increase somewhat 
the percentages from the western states and correspondingly de- 
crease those from the eastern states. 

The census gives the proportion of native and foreign-bom 
in Oklahoma respectively as ninety-six and one-tenth i>er cent 
and three and nine-tenths per cent^ a jiercentage of foreign-bom 
far below the average for the United States as a whole.'^ Of 
the native-bom population, seventeen and two-tenths per cent 
were bom in Oklahoma, and the other eighty-two and eight- 
tenths per cent came from other parts of the United States, as 
shown in the following table :^ 

Table showing place of birth of native-born population in Okla- 
homa, 1900. 



KaDsas 


Per ct. 

15.9 
12.3 
8.8 
7.2 
n.O 
4.5 
3.9 
3 1 
3.1 


Kentucky 


Pr. ct. 
3.1 


Missouri 


Nebraf^ka 


2.4 


Texas 


fndian Territory 


2.3 




Pennnvlvania 


1.5 


Iowa . . . 


Now York 


1.0 


Indiana 


Alabama ) 

Mississippi [■ 

Louisiana ) 




Ohio 


2.4 


Tennessee . ... 




Arkansas 


All others 


6.3 



Taking those states which are uisuailly cxmsddered as 
sou them, Missouri, Texas, Tennessee, Arkansa.=, TCentncky, 



1 U. S. Census, 1900, vol. 1. p. li. 

2 Ibid., p. cvii. 

•1 Ibid., p. cxliii. 



374 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences. Arts, and Letters. 

Indian Territory, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, the 
total percentage is thirty-five and one-tenth, while from the 
northern states, Kansas, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio, ^^e- 
braska, Pennsylvania and Xew York, it is forty-one and 
foaii^tentbs,^ thns showing that in spite of Oklahoma's southern 
location the majority of her population is from the iS^orth. 
That is perhaps further exemplified by the fact that the political 
parties in the territory have always been vers- evenly divided, 
with the Republicans usually in the ascendency,^ in contrast to 
the large democratic m.ajorities of the other southern states. 
This may in a measure be due to the small percentage of negroes, 
only three and nine^tenths in the territoiy,^ which allows the 
white citizens to be divided into two nearly equal parties with- 
out danger of negro control. 

Dividing the Union nowi by the Mds&issippi river, Ave find 
that forty-nine and eight-tenths per cent of Oklahoma's native- 
born population comes from the states west of the Mississippi, 
and only twenty-six and seven-tenths'* from those east of the 
river, but it will be seen that of that twenty-six and seven-tenths 
per cent, the Northwest furnished fifteen and six-tenths, the 
South eight and six-tenths and the Elast two and five-tenths, 
while the southenL and northern sections v/fst of the river are 
quite evenly divided, with twenty-six and five-tenths and twenty- 
three and three-tenths per cent reispectivel\'. Thus we 'see that 
tlie bulk of Oklahonna's population came from the three north- 
western states'' of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio', and froin the states 
between tlie Mississippi and the moiintains excepting Minnesota 
and the Dakotias. To make still aiicthor arrangement of the 
states, we have from the four surrounding Oklahoma and Indian 
Territory, namely, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and Texas, to- 
gether with Indian Territory itself, forty-two and four-tenths 



1 I have considered Missouri as a southern and Kansas as a north- 
ern state, because they are usually thought of as such, although really 
lying in the same belt. 

2 Int. Dept., Misc. Repts., 1901, pt. 2, pp. 323-24. 

3 U. S. Census, 1900, vol. 1, p. cxiv. 

* In this and the previous divisions, the six and three-tenths per 
cent, which is not assigned to definite states has been neglected. 



Buck — The Settlement of Oklahoma. 3T:> 

percent of Oklahoma's native-lxini popnlarioii, and from all the 
rest of the Union only forty and four-tenths per cent, showing 
tha-t tlie settlei-s came largely fmm the adjacent states. 

To divide tlie settlers of OklaJionna into any hard and fixed 
classes would of amrse be impossible, but there seem to be some 
more or less distinct divisions which might be made. Con- 
sidering them in tiie light of what had been their previous oc- 
cupation, we have first of all the professional "bot«ners" ^v'ho8e 
agitation had oj^ned tlie territory and many of whom had be- 
come so used to violating the law that they now became ^'soon- 
ers" in their eagerness to i^ap the fi-uits of their agitation/ 
Then wei have a large class of farmei"s who had met with fail- 
ure in other parts of tlie eountrv% either because of adverse con- 
ditions or for lack of those qualities which go to make up a suc- 
c-essful fanner. It Avas oue of this class taking part in the 
first nish who had as his motto painted on the canvas side of 
his prairie schooner: "Chinch-hugged in Illinois, Bald-nobbed 
in Mizzouri, Prohibited in Kansas, Oklihommy or Bust."- 

Tliei'e v»-ere also a great many men from the professional 
ranks, such as lawyers, druggists and physicians, and a large 
number of merchants who oought Oklahoma during and between 
the rushes as a good field in which to build up a practice or a 
line of business.'' Lawyers were especially numerous at first, 
called by the vast amount of litigation resulting from the nish. 
Besides these classes tliere were many common workmen and 
day-laborers, minei-s, factoiy employes and uni=ikilled lalwrers 
in general from the cities of the Northwest,"* who drifted down 
to Oklahoma, took i>art in the nish and often won a home and 
became in time successful and independent farme/i*s. 

Looking at O'ldahcmia's population from the standpoiiit of 
purpose in coming into the tearitoiT, we have a ]X)ssible divi- 
sion into three classes, tliose who came to make a home, those 
who came to make money by speculation, and those who had no 
settled purjwse in coming. Tlie first class includes not only 



1 Tribune Extras, vol. 1. no. 7. p. 2' 

2 Ibid. 

3 Ibid., p. 24. 

4 Ibid., p. 30. 



376 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences,, Arts, and Letters. 

the honest settler ^vho took up a fanii or bought tlie claim to one 
from a speculator, but also a large proportion of those who set- 
tled the different cities and villages of the territoiy and built 
up a business or a professional practice. Most of the would-be 
fao-mera who came with the first nish vrere poor men with 
scarcely enough laid by to tide them over to the first harvests, 
but later, when the success of Oklahoma as an agricultural 
country had been proven, a great many conservative and com- 
paratively well-to-do settlers were attracted by a desire to es- 
cape the extreme temperatures of the Xorth or of the far South, 
or to be with their more adventurous friends who had gone 
before,^ 

The speculators were a prominent featui'e in all of the 
Oklahoma oi^enings, and a continual source of trouble for the 
oflicials unless «hey were in alliance with each other, as at 
Guthrie and Oklahoma City, They first made their appear- 
ance as gamblers in the crowds collected on the borders before 
the rush and plied their various games with considerable success 
among the waiting thousands who had nothing else to occupy 
their time and were imbued with the spirit of adventure by the 
element of chance in the opening itself." Then there were many 
who took part in the iiish who were not qualified to malvc entry 
under the homestead laws, but believed that here was an oppor- 
tunity to "tuni an hones.t penny" by seizing a quarter-section 
or a to^vn lot and then selling the claim to the real settler. The 
presence of such specnlatoi"s was especially noticeable in the 
various toA\Ti site settlements,'^ and here, too, the gamblers, not 
content with fleecing their victims on the border, follo\ved them 
in and continued to work their games ^Aathout i-estraint among 
the successful and unfortunate alike. 

The third di\nsion, those who came without settled purpose, 
"were members of a class which is quite common throughout the 
Southwest and is generally known as the ''movers."* Thev are 



1 Int Dept, Misc. Repts., 1899, pt. 2, p. 726. 

2C. M. Harger. Outlook. Aug. 17, 1901; Tribune Extras, vol. 1, no. 7, 
p. 24. 

3 Sec. Int. Rept, 1891, vol. 3, p. 452. 

4 C. M. Harger, Outlook. Feb. 2 and Aug. 17, 1901; H. C. Candee, 
Forum, June 1898. 



Buck — The Settlement of Oklahoma. 377 

usually people who, having changed their location several times, 
have finally become so imbued Avith the "boom-fever" that they 
find it imix)ssible to settle down. Xumbers of these who were 
wandering aimlessly ai-omid tJie Southwest turned their ?teps 
toward Oklalioma \vhen the opening was announced, and took 
part in the fii*st rush and in every succeeding rush thereafter. If 
they succeeded in getting a claim, they seldom lived on it long, 
but soon sold out and were up and moving again. Like the 
gypsies of tJie northern states, they often move about in small 
bands with two or three Avagons and a small collection of horses, 
camp for a week or two along a stream near to some tovni, wliere 
they eke out a precarious existence by fishing and horse-trading, 
and then move on to another location. 

One class of people has been left out so far in tliis discussion, 
namely the ranchmen on the western plains. As has been 
showni, a large part of western Oklahoma is isiiitable only to 
grazing, and here the herds of the cattle companies roam over 
the prairies under the care of the cow^-punchers, much as they 
did in the rest of Oklahoma before the opening. 

No discussion of Oklahoma's population is complete without 
some mention of the Indians, who in 1902 numbered 12,893, a 
decrease of tAventy-six over the preceding year.^ This does not 
include the three hundi*ed Arizona Apaches held at Fort Sill 
as prisoners of war. Tlie Indians of the territory are divided 
into six different agencies, the O^sage, White Eagle and Pawnee 
agencies haWng chai'ge of the Indians in the northeast comer 
of the ten'itory.' Most of these Indians except the Osages have 
taken land in severalty and ai*e cultivating it to some extent, 
although many lease part or all of their allotments to white oul- 
tivators. The Osage tribe still holds its land in conrmon and 
leases the most of it to cattlemen. The Indian agents all agree 
that the principal thing which hinders the development of these 
Indians into industrious farmers is their wealth, which is suf- 
ficient to allow^ them to live without work in a manner satisfac- 
tory to themselves, and thus all incentive to work is taken away. 



1 Int. Dept., Misc. Repts., 1902, pt. 2. p. 452. 
sibid., pp. 452-56. 



378 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 

The Indians of central Oklahoma, in charge of the Sac and 
Fox agency/ scattered as they are throughout their former res- 
ervations wherever they chanced to take up their allotments, are 
slowly succumbing to the influence of their white neighbors and 
are beginning to cailtivate their f amis. But still much of their 
land is leased and cultivated by white mien, while the owners live 
in idleness on the proceeds of the leases. In western Oklahoma, 
the Cheyennes and Arapahoes under the Darlington agency" are 
living on their allotments along the Canadian and the North 
Fork in the eastern part of their fonner reservation. They 
have made some advance toward civilization since taking up 
alloitments, and most of them have now given up the blanket for 
citizen's dress. In the South, the Indians imder the Kiowa 
agency,^ who were but recently given their land in severalty, are 
already showing the favorable influence of allotmentsi and in- 
dustrious white neighbors, and are making considerable efforts 
to improve their f annis and homes. 

CONCLUSION. 

Since the first opening of land in Oklahoma to white settle- 
ment, in 1889, the territory has changed from an area occupied 
by a few Indians and cattlemen to a substantial, well settled 
common-wiealth covered with fine farms and tliriving towns and 
partaking largely of the characteristics of the state of Kansas. 
Before this territory was five years old, the agitation for admis- 
sion to the Union was begun and immediately took two forms. 
There were those who favored immediate statehood for Okla- 
homa with the boundaries of the territoiy, and others who said 
that Oklahoma and Indian Territoi-y together would make a fine 
state and that they should wait until the Indian Territory 
could be so incorporated while doing ever^'thing in their power 
to bring it about. Year by year the agitation increased, com- 
parative statistics were marshaled together and every possible 
reason was advanced to show the justice of Oklahoma's demand 



1 Int. Dept, Misc. Repts., 1902, pt. 2, pp. 453-55. 

2 Ibid., pp. 456-58. 

3 Ibid., pp. 459-60. 



Biich — The Settlement of Oklahoma. 379 

for statehood, and finally the matter was brought before Con- 
gress in 1902-3 by the bill to gi'ant statehood to Oklahoma, 
New Mexico and Arizona. Tliis bill Avas thoroughly dis- 
cussed but failed to pass. 

In the next C^ngi-ess a new fonn of statehood bill was ad- 
vanced which proposed to make one state of Oklahoma and In- 
dian Territory combined. This bill passed the House in April 
1904, but the Senate adjounied without acting upon it. How- 
ever, the matter had been brought before the nation, and the ag- 
itation was continued in every session of Congress until finally 
in June 1906 an enabling act was passed by both houses of Con- 
gress. This act provides for the joint admission of the two 
territories, and so a new star will soon be added to the flag for 
the state of Oklahoma. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

United States Government Documents. 
Congressional Documents. 

48th Congress, 1st Session, Senate Ecxecutive Docu- 
ment 109. 
48th Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Executive Docu- 
ments 17 and 50. 
51st Congress, 1st Session, House Executive Docu- 
ment 209. 
51st Congress, 1st Session, Senate Executive Docu- 
ment 78. 
51st Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Executive Docu- 
ment 72. 
Congressional Record, 1879-1903. 
Documents of the Interior Department, 1879-1902. 
ReportKS of the Secretaries of tlie Interior. 
Repoi-ts of the Commissi(/ners of Indian Affairs. 
Reports of the Commissioners of the General Land 

Office. 
Reports of the Grovernors of the Territory of Okla- 
homa. 
United States Census, 1900. 



380 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences., Arts, and Letters. 

Newspaper and Magazine Articles. 

New York Tribune, Library of Tribune Extras, vol. 1, 
no. 7. 

Oandee, Helen Obureliill: "Oklahioma," Atlantic Monthly, 
vol. 86, p.. 328. 

Candee, Helen Oburchill : "Social Conditions in Okir New- 
est Territory," Forum, vol. 25, p. 426. 

Harger, Charles Moa:^a.ii: "Tlie Government's Gift of 
Homes," Outlook, vol. 68, p. 907. 

Harger, diaries Morean: "Tbe Next Ct)mmonwealth. : 
Oklahoma," Outlook, vol. 67, p. 273. 

Spears, John R. : "The Story of Oiklahoma," Chwutauqu^a/n, 
voL 9, p. 533. 

S>peed, Joihn Gibnar: "The Oklahoma Land Lottery," 
Outlook, vol. 68, p. 667. 

For other magazine articles see Poole's Index of Period- 
icals. 
Davis, Richard Harding: "The West from a Car Window." 
New York, 1892. 

MAPS. 

Opposite p&ge 
Plate IX. Indian Territory; the original cessions. .. .328 

Plate X. Indian Territory; divisions to 1866 330 

Plate XL Indian Territory ; 1866 332 

Plate XII. Indian Territory ; divisions and cessions, 

1866-1883 \ 334 

Plate XIII. Oklahoma Territory; the openings 356 

Plate XIV. Oklahoma Territory ; the advance of settle- 
ment 364 



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